


Pirate Dreams

by Calais_Reno



Series: The Irregulars [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't copy to another site, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Holmes Brothers' Childhood, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Mycroft Holmes Has Feelings, Orphans, POV Mycroft Holmes, Prequel, Regret, Reunions, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calais_Reno/pseuds/Calais_Reno
Summary: Prequel to and concurrent with The Night Children, which tells the story of how a young Sherlock became homeless and collected a band of Irregulars on Baker Street, one of whom was John Watson. That story was told from John's POV.This is the story of what was happening to Mycroft during all those years, how he came to be separated from his brother and lost track of him, and how they were reunited many years later. Sherlock tells part of this story in The Night Children (part 1) and Boxing Day (part 2). This story is Mycroft's POV.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes/Original Character, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: The Irregulars [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580584
Comments: 46
Kudos: 68





	1. Epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> The minor character deaths are the Holmes parents, not any of the main characters in this story.
> 
> Why Mycroft calls his brother William will be explained. 
> 
> Johnlock happens in this story, but it is not the main focus and does not happen on stage until near the end.

The earliest memory Mycroft Holmes had was his sister Anne’s birth. When he thought about this much later, he wondered how it was possible that he, being barely two years old, could have remembered it. Had she lived, he no doubt would have remembered something about her, but she died two days after she came into the world. He was not allowed to see her until the funeral, when his father lifted him to look into the small casket and say goodbye to her. She was tiny and pink, like a doll, and wore a lace cap embroidered with blue flowers. Someone had dressed her in a white christening gown which she hadn’t worn for her actual christening, that having taken place hurriedly a few hours after she was born. She was buried in the family cemetery beside her grandmother Vernet.

He remembered his mother, of course, because she had lived. She stayed in bed for a long time after Anne died, but finally recovered enough to sit in the sunroom and read books to Mycroft. He did not remember her ever being well enough to play with him.

What he did remember was her beautiful, dark hair curling around her neck, and her light eyes that seemed to change colour, like an opal. Sometimes she felt strong enough to play the piano and sing, and he loved to sit and listen when she did. She could sing _Lavenders Blue_ and _Across the Sea_ , but the songs she loved were in Italian and were mostly about romance. A contralto, she had a beautiful, compelling voice. His father told him that she had once planned to sing opera on a stage, and had learned Italian because of that. She was French, and always spoke that language to Mycroft so he would learn. When he went to sleep at night, she sang _Au Clair de la Lune._

He also remembered the day he was given his first responsibility. His mother was going to have another baby, his father told him, and it was up to them to make sure she stayed well so the baby would be healthy.

“I will take care of her,” he solemnly told his father.

He was almost five by then, and able to read books to her as she lay in bed. If she needed anything, he would ring the bell to fetch the maid or the nurse, and would hurry to find them if they didn’t come at once.

“You should run and play, darling,” she would say.

But he knew his responsibility. “I’m taking care of you.”

His next sister lived a week. They named her Charlotte. His mother stayed in bed for a year.

He had a tutor by then. They had moved out of the city after Charlotte died (because the doctor said that the foggy air was not good for children), and moved into in a big house in the country that belonged to his father’s family and had dogs and horses and a little woodland, and many rooms full of things they never used. The name of the house was Woodley Hall.

His father took more notice of him now, and said that someday he would teach him how to ride a horse and shoot a gun and make money. He had his own business and was a partner in a venture that belonged to his wife’s family. Her uncle Rudy ran it. Father always told Mother privately that Rudy was a _queer old thing_ and he didn’t like Mycroft spending too much time with him. Mycroft wasn’t sure what that meant, but he rather liked Uncle Rudy, who always brought presents for him and told jokes that he didn’t understand. This was remarkable because there was very little that Mycroft didn’t understand. Or rather, the things Mycroft didn’t understand were things adults didn’t normally talk about in front of children. It interested him that Uncle Rudy wasn’t like other adults.

When he was six, his mother took to her bed again, and he knew that another sister would soon be born. He talked to his father privately, and asked if it might not be better to have a boy this time. His father just smiled and said, “We’ll have to see what the stork brings.”

He knew what a stork was, having read Bewick’s _History of British Birds_. He did not know what they might have to do with babies, but he thought his father was foolish to trust a bird to bring his new sibling. He would have to take care of this baby himself.

Just after Christmas, on the eve of the Epiphany, the doctor was sent for and the servants busied themselves boiling water and bringing basins and towels to his mother’s room. His father was very nervous, and locked himself in his office once the doctor arrived, instructing the servants to come and get him when there was news.

In all the commotion, Mycroft was able to slip onto the second-floor balcony, where he was never, _ever_ allowed because of his mother’s fear that he would fall off. He himself was afraid of heights, and not a little afraid of large birds, but understood that it was his responsibility to make sure his new sibling arrived safely. So he waited, watching the sky for storks, his heart beating with fear and anticipation. He would be there, ready to receive his brother when the stork flew to his mother’s window, and he would bring the baby to her all by himself. She would be proud that he’d taken care of everything so well.

The night was cold, but he’d worn his coat and brought a blanket as well, and some scones to eat if he got hungry. He didn’t remember how long it took for his sisters to arrive, but was prepared to wait as long as necessary for his brother.

It would have to be a brother this time, since he would take responsibility for its welfare and he didn’t know anything about girls. He thought about names. His mother had chosen the name _Mycroft_ for him, after some famous poet. Her side of the family, the Vernets, were artistic— painters, musicians, poets. The name of this baby would not be anything so strange. His brother would not have to explain to other children why he wasn’t named _Charles_ or _Edward_ or _Henry_. Mycroft had chosen the name _William_ for his brother. It was a graceful name, a name for a man of learning and curiosity. He might be a scientist, Mycroft decided, and they could study things together. He could teach him all the things that Mycroft had learned by himself from books and from watching people. Maybe he would be musical, like their mother, and play the piano or violin.

When he opened his eyes, the sun was rising. Epiphany, it was called, the day when the Magi arrived and saw the Christ child. _Revelation._

Hearing no noise from inside the house, he crept back inside and went straight to his mother’s room. When he heard a baby crying, he knew that he had missed his chance to intercept the stork, and this baby would die, like his sisters.

But the baby was crying. He had never heard his sisters cry so loudly, so maybe this one had survived the stork’s landing.

He stood at the door of her room, looking for his brother. His mother was asleep in the bed, her dark hair fanned out on the pillow. She looked very pale. The nurse held a small parcel that wiggled a bit and was now making tiny protests. Another woman, someone new, sat in a chair, asleep. The doctor had left, which might mean that all was well.

The nurse beckoned to him, and he padded softly across the floor to stand beside her, looking down at his brother.

“His name is William,” he said.

The nurse chuckled. “Your mum has already picked out a name. _Sherlock_. He was an actor she saw once, _Phineas Sherlock_. Very handsome, she says.”

Mycroft shook his head and held out a finger to his brother. “The other boys will laugh at him.”

William squinted at him and waved his arms a bit. Mycroft put his finger in the tiny hand and smiled as his new brother held on.

“Ah,” said William, and looked calmly at Mycroft.

“Can I hold him?”

She settled him in the chair and positioned the baby in his arms. “Keep your hand under his head. He’s not strong enough yet to hold it up himself.”

They sat like that for a long time, looking at each other. William had dark blue eyes, but Mycroft already knew that most baby’s eyes were that colour, and eventually William’s eyes would be just like his mother’s, like the inside of a seashell. The wisps of hair on his head were dark and stuck out like the down of a small, black bird. He would look like his mother, Mycroft decided.

“Where is my father?”

His father was so happy to have another son that he invited friends over and drank too much. Mycroft crept into the drawing room and watched, but they didn’t shoo him out. Every so often, his father would grab him and ruffle his hair and say, with tears in his eyes, _my boy_. He gave Mycroft a sip of whisky. He’d tasted wine before and rather liked it. Whisky tasted like fire; his father laughed when he started coughing.

A wet nurse was brought in to feed his brother because Mother was too weak to do anything but stay in bed. Every four hours, she came into the nursery and lifted the baby from his cot, put him to her breast. Mycroft was too old to spend time in the nursery now, but he liked to make sure they were not forgetting his brother.

At night, sometimes the wet nurse slept through his cries, and Mycroft knew that once William started screaming, he wouldn’t latch on and feed as he ought to, which would make his little gut hurt more. He needed attention, and everyone seemed busy with other things.

His father, of course, had to go to work. When he was home, he closed the door of his office.

The doctor came again, examined William, and proclaimed him healthy. “Don’t let him be a tyrant, now,” he told the nurse. “He should soon sleep through the night.”

But even after weeks went by, the baby didn’t sleep all night. He woke up and cried, and nobody paid any attention to him. His mother stayed in bed, and his father drank too much.

And so another responsibility fell to Mycroft. At night, he went to the nursery, climbed into the cot with his brother, and slept beside him. When William woke, fussing, he rubbed his back and sang to him until he fell asleep.

“You have to grow up soon,” he told his brother. “I’ll make sure you stay safe.”

* * *

When William began walking, he became a lot more interesting. He followed Mycroft like a duckling, watching what he did and trying to do the same. Because he was so good at taking care of William, his mother insisted that he have a tutor, rather than going to the village school. When they were both older, she said, Mycroft would go away to school, and William might learn from the tutor. Father didn’t agree about the tutor, but he never argued with Mother about it.

Mr Murray was a _progressive_ teacher, Mother said. Years later, when Mycroft eventually went away to school, he learned what this meant. It didn’t bother Mr Murray that William liked to roam around the room climbing on things while Mycroft recited his times tables, and he let the little boy spin the globe without the usual adult warnings about breaking expensive things or hurting himself. He let him have paper and a pencil to draw while Mycroft practiced his penmanship, and often the three of them walked the grounds while Mr Murray explained how trees turn light into food and how bees turn nectar into honey. William liked these lessons too, and would interrupt with questions more than Mycroft did.

He learned to read when he was three, though it might have happened sooner. Mycroft often sat with him and read whatever book William brought to him. They shared a room now, each with a little bed, but it was usual for the younger boy to fall asleep in his brother’s bed, listening to a story.

When Mycroft was eleven, the discussion began about boarding school. His father felt that Mycroft needed to be around other boys, to begin playing sports and making connections that would last a lifetime. Such connections were necessary for a young man getting started in the world, he said. Sherlock was four, old enough to sit still for Mr Murray’s lessons, and would continue. His mother was in better health now, and was teaching William to play the violin.

His parents called their younger son Sherlock. Only to Mycroft was he William. He answered to both names, but _William_ was like a special endearment, a nickname only Mycroft used.

William called him _My,_ possessively. _My brother._

Mycroft stood at the door waiting for the carriage that would take him to school. William was holding his hand, scowling up at him.

“I want to go with you, My,” he said.

“You’ll come with me when you’re older. Mr Murray will teach you for now.”

William chewed his lip. “When will you come back?”

“At Christmas,” he told him. “But afterwards I’ll have to go back.”

“Will you like it?”

He sighed, certain he wouldn’t. But it did no good to admit this. It would happen whether he wanted to or not. William didn’t understand yet that _liking_ things didn’t really matter when you were still a child.

“You must be good when I’m gone,” he told him. “Learn as much as you can, and don’t fidget. Read books, even if they’re boring. Mr Murray can help you understand them.”

“Why should I learn so much, if I’m going to be in school soon?”

Mycroft went down on his knees and looked into William’s eyes. They were exactly like their mother’s, opalescent and beautiful.

“The more you learn, the less people can tell you what to do. The entire world belongs to you when you can read.”

William scratched his curly head. “I can already read.”

“Then use it,” he said. “Use it to answer every question you have, to learn everything you want to know. Reading other people’s words will teach you how to think and how to speak, and people will listen to you if you speak well and intelligently. Even the most learned men will listen to you, and they will respect you.”

“I’d like to be a pirate,” William said.

Mycroft hugged his brother until the carriage arrived.

School was not terrible, he decided. He already knew more than other boys his age, and so was recommended for the advanced class, with older boys. Most of them were kind to him, treating him something like a mascot, or a little brother. The boys his own age were rather stupid and mean.

He was made to share a room at school with a boy named Winthrop. Like Mycroft, he was quiet, but better at sports. And he had an odd name that he didn’t seem to mind. Unlike Mycroft, he made friends easily. Everyone called him Win. While they weren’t exactly friends, he could have been paired with a much less compatible roommate. He became Mycroft’s window into the ordinary mind of a twelve-year old boy.

His family wasn’t wealthy. “I’m going to study law, and then I’ll work for the government,” he told Mycroft. “My father works for the Foreign Office, and he can get me a clerkship there.”

Mycroft had always expected that he would go to work with his father, making investments and running a business. It wasn’t very exciting, but if he learned to be good at it, he could do other things that were more interesting. He had never dreamed of being a pirate, nothing so adventuresome, but he sometimes wondered what his dreams would have been if his mother had been well and his father had been sensible.

Most mornings, he did not remember his dreams. Some people did not dream, he decided. They planned, and invested, and carefully set aside what was needed for the future.

His plan was to provide for his brother, give him a chance to do whatever he enjoyed most. Maybe William would be a naturalist, studying insects and amphibians as he did on all their walks in the woods. An inventor, perhaps, a maker of cunning machines. Or maybe he’d be a famous violinist. In any case, Mycroft would learn to be good at making money so William could keep his dreams.

“What does a clerk do?” he asked Win.

“Well, at first he’s getting papers signed, and filing things, and keeping track of meetings. Eventually, though, I want to go abroad as a diplomat.”

“That sounds interesting.” Mycroft had never traveled, except to France, because his mother was always too ill. Father had sent him and William there last summer, before he left for school, along with Mr Murray. They’d stayed outside Paris, in a country house owned by their great uncle Hubert. He might like traveling to foreign countries. For that, he would need to speak their languages.

Unfortunately, the only languages they studied at school were Latin and Greek, which were only spoken by dead people. But he studied hard and earned high marks, no demerits for poor behaviour.

Holidays at home were what he most looked forward to, though. William was always waiting at the gate for him, eager to show him what he’d learned.

When he came home for Christmas, the first thing he noticed was how unhappy his brother seemed. The whole house was at sixes and sevens— Father was angry and upset, occupied mostly with business, and Mother had taken to her bed. He overheard the staff talking and learned that there had been another baby, lost before it might even be considered a person. And his father was having _legal troubles._ There was talk that he’d have to go work for Uncle Rudy.

William didn’t completely understand was was happening around him, but he was affected by it all, and the one person who had kept him steady after Mycroft left for school— Mr Murray— was getting married and taking a position at a boys’ school in Scotland. William would have to go to the village school as soon as he turned six.

“School isn’t so bad,” Mycroft told him. “Rather a waste of time for people like us, but it has to be done.”

“Why?” William was sulking, plucking the strings of his violin.

“To prove yourself.” This was the only answer he could think of. It wasn’t something he accepted easily himself, but he knew that people didn’t turn young boys loose in the world to become diplomats or pirates just because they didn’t like school. One had to earn those things. “You need to be patient, William.”

“Why?” The tuneless plucking continued. “If a person is smart and reads books to get smarter, why does he have to go to school?”

Mycroft sighed. “There are other things… besides being intelligent.”

“Like what?”

“Having friends, knowing how to get along, how to influence people to do things.”

“I don’t need friends,” said William. “I have you.”

“Yes, you do.”

William set down his violin and climbed up on the sofa next to Mycroft. “And you won’t leave me, will you?”

“No, I won’t.” He sighed again and put his arm around his brother’s shoulders. “But promise me that you’ll try to be good in school and make friends. Don’t argue with your teachers.”

“Even when they’re wrong?”

He hated saying it. “When you’re older, you can argue with adults, but when you’re small, you have to keep quiet and go along with things. Use your senses, the way you do in the woods. Notice your surroundings, and figure it out. It’s survival, William. Fighting is for people who aren’t intelligent enough to figure things out on their own.”

“Pirates fight,” the little boy replied. “I’m going to have a ship, and rule a whole crew of mates.”


	2. The Sorrow That I Bear for You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a death (minor character, not graphic) by suicide in this chapter.

Mycroft Holmes didn’t stand out at boarding school for his unusual name. He was called _Holmes_ by everyone, and that wasn’t an odd name at all.

He did stand out for another reason: he was by far the most serious boy in the lower forms, the one who regarded education as something valuable, rather than as an annoyance to be endured. His studies absorbed him, and he soon realised that the other boys were dragging their feet, slowing him down. They didn’t remember things they had just learned the previous day. When they read, they didn’t understand half of the content. If they would just focus and _learn_ , he thought, they could all get through the curriculum much more quickly and move on to more interesting things.

Every term he read ahead and mastered his lessons in a few weeks, then begged his teachers for more. He was the boy who always had his face in a book, never cared about the games so dear to his classmates. He was the student who rarely raised his hand in class, but when asked to recite, always drew dirty looks from the other boys. As Mycroft understood it, he was ruining their game of pretend ignorance by actually playing well.

It wasn’t until years later when he realised that many of the boys were simply not very intelligent. At least compared to him, they were not. He wasn’t sure if that meant that he was much more intelligent than average, or if they were much stupider, but he kept his thoughts to himself and his mind on his goal, to finish school as quickly as possible and move on to the next level, a career.

What that career would be was less certain. His interests were broad, and his memory prodigious. Loved by his teachers for his mind, he was hated by his classmates for making them look lazy and stupid. At times he was sought out for his help, which he often gave, but no one made a friend of him.

He had barely started his second year at boarding school when he was called home. His mother was very ill and might die, he was told. 

Her pale face, thinner than he remembered, shone with perspiration, and there were dark circles under her eyes. A nurse had been brought in to make sure the doctor’s orders were followed, which were to feed her bone broth every four hours. Coughing wracked her frail body, but the doctor insisted that the window must be kept open. The air in the house was most unwholesome, he said.

His father had sunk into despair, drinking and ignoring his business. People came to see him and he threw them out. Sometimes he would sit beside his wife, holding her hand and saying nothing while she slept. For hours he could stay there, weeping silently, muttering prayers.

Mycroft had always known that his parents loved one another, and that he and his brother were products of that love. Neither his mother nor his father had ever doted on their children, though, not the way they doted on each other. Sometimes he wondered if their father blamed them for being born, making their mother so ill.

His father didn’t come to talk to them about it. Mycroft listened to the doctor as he gave instructions to the nurse and asked him how long his mother would live. From the look the doctor gave him, Mycroft knew he would not tell him the truth.

“I’m not a child,” he told the man. “My father will tell me nothing, but I must know if I am to help him manage things. So do not lie to me, and do not tell me it’s none of my concern. It _is_ my concern, and my responsibility.”

The doctor nodded, resigned. “Any day. She doesn’t have long.”

He was thirteen, and none of the adults in the house seemed to know what to do. Meals weren’t cooked or served, laundry was washed and left in a pile to moulder, and his father stayed in his office, drinking.

Once again, Mycroft knew his what he had to do. He found William sitting on the staircase in the entry hall, watching a spider build her web. That such a thing could happen in this house, that nobody had been sweeping the stairs and dusting the hall, was a sign that everything was wrong. This meant that he must figure out what to do for himself.

“William,” he said, sitting down beside his brother. “We must say goodbye to Mother now.”

“Where is she going?” He poked at the web, watching the spider scurry into hiding as the web stuck to his finger and pulled apart. “Why is she leaving us?”

“She’s been very ill, you know. And now she is dying. We must kiss her and tell her we love her before she leaves.”

“Will she go to the cemetery with Grandmother?”

William had known about the bodies buried there for at least a year. It was Mycroft who had explained it to him when they saw a funeral taking place. He wasn’t sure what he himself believed about human souls, or even if they were real. It was something beyond proof, he decided, and it would be best to err on the side of belief.

“Her body will go there, but souls go to heaven. Our sisters are there already, with Grandmother, but we won’t be able to see them until we go there.”

“I don’t want my body to be in the ground,” he said. “When I die, you can just throw me in the sea. That’s what pirates do.”

“You’re not going to die any time soon, William,” he said. It was something he used to fear, when his brother was very small and cried at night, but now he was a strong boy, and Mycroft took care of him. “Will you say goodbye to Mother?”

William nodded and took his hand. Together they went to her room, the same room where William had been born almost six years earlier. Mycroft still remembered that night. He used to chastise himself for missing the stork, but had since learned that babies are not delivered by storks, but that they come out of their mother’s body, formed inside of her by a carnal union.

Their mother lay in her bed, her eyes closed. She was very thin and pale, and there were dark smudges under the beautiful eyes, which looked grey now, like smoke. The nurse sat nearby, dozing in her chair.

“Mother,” he said. “It’s I, Mycroft. Sherlock and I have come to say goodbye.”

She opened her eyes but could not raise her head. He came close and took her cold hand. William climbed up on the bed beside her.

“My boys.” Her voice was very weak, as if she were already far away. “My dear boys.”

“Goodbye, Mummy,” said William. He kissed her on her thin cheek.

Mycroft’s voice was frozen in his throat. He held her hand and saw his tears fall onto the bedclothes. A great sob was building in his chest.

“Mother, I’m sorry,” he gasped.

“My darling,” she whispered. “Don’t be sad. Take care of Sherlock.”

He couldn’t remember when he had last cried. He’d been too young when his sisters died, and he hadn’t really known them. But he would miss his mother. He kissed her hand and pressed it to his face. “I will.”

She smiled. “I wish… that I could see you grow up. You’re so brave and strong, Mycroft. You will be… a great man someday. I would like to have seen that.”

Saying this much exhausted her, and she closed her eyes, still holding his hand. The nurse woke then and told them they must leave so their mother could sleep.

Nobody cooked dinner for them that day. His father came out of his room later that night, when the nurse fetched him. Mycroft could hear keening and sobbing from his mother’s room.

He lay beside William, who was asleep now, dreaming of pirates, perhaps.

Mycroft did not go back to school, and nobody seemed to notice. Things went halfway back to normal, in that the servants cooked and cleaned. But nothing was quite as it had been. It all felt vague and temporary, like a dream you’ll soon wake from and forget.

Father seemed to forget a great deal. For weeks, people came to the house and argued with him, and he just sat with his head in his hands most of the time. When he wasn’t doing that, he was drinking. Sometimes he wandered around the house in his dressing gown, a glass in his hand.

One night Mycroft woke up to see his father sitting on the bed, looking at him. He didn’t say anything, but just watched him and William, who was still asleep beside him.

“Father, is everything all right?” he whispered.

He shook his head. “Everything is wrong.” He took a swallow from his glass. “I can’t fix anything.”

“I could help you,” he said. “Tell me what to do.” If there were another responsibility, he would take it on.

His father lay a hand on his cheek. “Poor boy. What will become of you?” He looked down at William, still sleeping peacefully. “Love is a dangerous disadvantage, my son. Very simple, very destructive. Remember that.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. His father got up, stumbling a bit, and went towards the door.

In the morning it was Christmas. The house was quiet; the servants had all gone home to their families. There were no smells of goose cooking with onions and parsnips and sage, no whistling of the pudding steaming on the stove. Father hadn’t thought to buy any presents, and they lived in the country, miles away from any shops.

It was strange, he thought, that Christmas could dawn like an ordinary day. Even he, rational as he was, had always felt magic in the air when he woke on Christmas morning. There would be the smells from the kitchen, singing from below as the servants prepared for guests. His mother might sit at the piano and play carols while everyone sang. He would wear his best suit, and guests would smile and pat his head. William would tear around the house like a demon, excited beyond his capacity to take it all in, and would eventually fall asleep playing with his new toys.

Today felt like an ordinary day. No smells, no music, no excitement pulsing in the air. Maybe Christmas had never actually been magic and he was just now realising it. Maybe this was what growing up felt like.

Mycroft lay awake at dawn, knowing that his brother would be disappointed. In a house full of things that didn’t belong to them (he had heard Father shouting that at Mother one time), there had to be something that would delight his younger brother. William wasn’t like other children. He didn’t need a hobby horse or a lead soldiers or a set of skittles. He’d had those things and tired of them. He would want something that no grown up would ever think of giving a child. Not something dangerous, of course, but something odd.

He slid out of be and climbed the stairs into the attic, which was full of steamer trunks and boxes. His parents owned more clothing than any one person could wear in a lifetime, it seemed. There were some books, paintings, old furniture, but mostly steamer trunks full of dresses and stoles and jackets and hats.

Hunting clothes were stored in one old trunk. The Holmes men had always been hunters and horsemen. His father had made sure Mycroft knew how to ride and shoot a gun, and William was almost old enough to learn these things too.

He tried to imagine his brother ten years older. He’d be lanky, built like Mother’s side of the family, with wild, dark hair and light eyes. Confident, of course, able to talk his way out of anything. He wouldn’t be like Mycroft, reserved and always a bit defensive. He would be self-possessed. Even if they ended up poor after Father’s troubles were sorted out, William would speak and act and walk like a lord.

Looking towards the third floor landing, he imagined an older William coming up the stairs, calling out for Mycroft. He wanted to know that boy, almost a man. He wanted to see where his life would take him. Everyone would call him _Sherlock,_ because he was proud of his odd name. _The name’s Sherlock Holmes,_ he would introduce himself _._ Only Mycroft could call him _William_.

Ten years from now, William would be almost sixteen, and Mycroft would be twenty-three. His brother would still be in school, but he himself would be out in the world, finding his own place there. He imagined them together, sharing rooms in London, perhaps.

Hearing small feet on the stairs, he said goodbye to that older William. _Someday,_ he thought, _I’ll know you._

“ _My_! Where are you?” William tumbled up the last few steps into the attic and smiled in relief when he saw his brother. “I didn’t know where you’d gone, My. Father isn’t in his room and I was calling for you.”

“I was looking for your Christmas present.”

His eyes grew round and he clapped his hands. “Oh, Christmas! I’d almost forgot!” He threw his arms around Mycroft. “Where’s my present?”

“It’s up here. You have to find it.”

“It’s a treasure hunt!” he shouted, and began to dig through the boxes and trunks. Dismissing the dresses and gowns outright, he looked through the box of hunting clothes carefully.

Mycroft waited to see what he would choose.

“Is this it?” In his hands he held an old deerstalker hat, probably one that had belonged to their grandfather. It was grey wool, and seemed free of moth holes. The stitching still looked good and the fore-and-aft bills hadn’t bent out of shape. He put it on his head.

“A bit large,” Mycroft said. “But you’ll grow into it. Do you like it?”

“It’s my favourite present ever,” he said.

Mycroft found a pan and cooked eggs for them, and then they bundled up for a walk in the woods. That was all he could promise his brother. When they came back to the house, he would look for something they could eat. And he would light a fire in the hearth. The entire house felt cold, and had been for days. These were things adults always took care of, and now the only adult left in the house wasn’t taking care of anything.

Wearing his new hat, William bounced and sang and stopped to make snowballs. Mycroft was wondering where their father had gone and what he should do about that.

Father hadn’t been paying the servants, he knew, and that meant that none of them would not be coming back after the holiday. He’d sent them home last evening. There was not a lot of food in the kitchen; Mycroft had seen the servants taking baskets of it with them, all the holiday food they had planned to cook.

_Food, laundry, firewood_. These would be needed. The horses had been taken away, probably to settle a debt. What else was there of value that they owned? Was there anything? Only his father knew the answer to that.

_Taxes, tuition, bills_. He wasn’t sure what things needed paying for, but going back to school seemed like the least important thing at the moment. Maybe Father would take them somewhere, back to their house in the city, or maybe to a relative. He would let the house out and draw income from that.

And he was certain where his own responsibility lay. He would make sure that William was taken care of. He didn’t know how he would do this, but he was certain that Father was not able to think about it now. He hadn’t been able to think about anything since Mother died.

They approached the pond where they always looked for frogs in the summer time. Once they’d caught a snake, and William had named it Scaly when Mr Murray explained that its skin was made of tiny scales. They’d seen tadpoles hatching and later growing legs. They’d used a net to catch minnows.

Today the pond would be frozen, but they could throw stones on it and try to guess how thick the ice was.

Just as they approached the ice-covered pond, a shot rang out. He grabbed William’s shoulder and pulled him back from the edge of the pond, down to the ground. They waited, breathless, for another shot, but there was none.

“Who’s hunting?” asked William.

Mycroft shouted, “Halloo!” This was what you did when someone was in the woods, firing a gun, to let them know there were people about and not to shoot in their direction. “Halloo!” he called again.

William giggled. He made his voice deeper and bellowed, “Hallooooo!”

There was no replying shout, and no more shots fired. He listened, to see if he could hear feet crunching on the frozen ground, but the only sound was wind in the trees. The silence was eerie, full of something that hadn’t yet happened.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “If someone is shooting, we shouldn’t be out here.”

William looked at the pond, frowning. “I want to test the ice. If it’s thick enough, can we go skating?”

“It’s too early for it to be thick yet. It’ll be colder in January. Let’s go. I’ll make you some hot chocolate.”

The smaller boy picked up a stone. It wasn’t even as big as his head, but it was all he could do to lift it. “Help me.”

“William, we have to go. If there are hunters, it’s not safe.”

William stomped his foot. “Nobody shoots by the pond. They’ll be out near the edge of the fields.”

He helped him lift the rock. Together, they heaved it onto the ice and watched the crack widen. They waited until it broke through and sank.

“Ride on my back,” he told William. “I’ll be your horse.”

He galloped all the way back to the house.

It would be dark early, he knew, because the solstice had just passed. By four, it would be too dark to go out and look. But he couldn’t let William come with him. What he expected to find was not something a child should see.

His brother always wanted to follow him.

“I’m hungry.” William stood on his toes, trying to see what was on the pantry shelves.

The servants had taken most of the food. He hadn’t heard Father say they could, but he hadn’t paid them their full wages, either, so they probably felt justified. In the back of the cupboard, though, he found a lump of something wrapped in cheesecloth.

“Look, here’s the pudding Bessie made us for Christmas,” he said. “Shall we flame it?”

William clapped his hands. “Pudding! Let’s light the pudding!”

Mycroft poured on some of the brandy, making sure it was soaked through, and then used a match to light it. William shrieked and danced around the kitchen. When the flames died down, Mycroft added a bit more brandy and cut them each a piece.

The extra spoonful of brandy soon put William to sleep. Once he was sure the boy wouldn’t wake, Mycroft put on his coat and went out the door. He carried a lantern because the light was fading fast. Remembering where he had heard the shot, he walked until he reached the cemetery.

Father had used a pistol, not the shotgun, and Mycroft was grateful he only had to see a hole, not the bloody wreck of his head. Even so, the sight would stay with him for years— the sightless eyes staring up at the sky, the blood around his head darkening the snow. He sat for a while, looking at him, unable to think what should happen next.

When his mother died, he had wept. That, he decided, was because he’d had the freedom to grieve his mother, thinking Father would take care of everything. Now, he must be the one who did not weep, the one who took care of everything. 

Rousing himself, he checked the pockets; empty. If there was a note, he’d probably left it on his desk. When he returned to the house, he would check. Then there would be other things he needed to do. Bring the sheriff from the village, send telegrams to Uncle Rudy and Cousin Sherrinford. They would know what else needed to be done.

Feeling that he’d left every bit of his childhood in the woods, he trudged back to the house, leaving the body on the grave where it had fallen. He’d left the lights on in the kitchen, the fire going in the parlour, and William was probably still sleeping on the sofa. It was only as he reached for the door handle that he noticed his hands were shaking.


	3. The Gravity of Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft goes to live with Cousin Sherrinford; Sherlock is sent to London with Uncle Rudy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on chapter count: I haven't actually increased the word count much, but it has more chapters because I rearranged things to make the chapter length more uniform and added an epilogue. This is completely written now, so the chapter count should not change.

Cousin Sherrinford came; Uncle Rudy did not.

By that time, they were out of food. Because William wouldn’tunderstand why there was nothing to eat, Mycroft gave him most of his own share of the food, going hungry so his brother wouldn’t have to.

Like most adults, Sherrinford was fully prepared to deal with a tragedy that was not his own. He was a tall, stout man, like Father, but near-sighted and stooped like a vicar. His own children were grown, and he lived in Ipswich with his wife, where he had a law office. Father and he were cousins, their fathers the sons of William Scott Holmes, a country squire, and Woodley Hall was the stately manor he had passed on to his oldest son, Robert Holmes, who had left it to his only son, William Siger Holmes, Mycroft’s father.

The house would be sold, Sherrinford decided. It was too expensive to keep it up, and it was clear that all the money spent on furnishing it hadn’t kept it from becoming run-down. The stonework was crumbling in places, and the roof was leaking, and they hadn’t had a decent gardener since— well,Mycroft couldn’t remember the garden ever being anything but a wilderness.

Sherrinford advised Mycroft to pack up anything he would need in his new home. As he folded his clothes, he thought about his parents, buried in the family lot next to Grandmother and his two sisters. _Would their graves be sold too?_

“Where is our new home? Will we live with you?” 

Sherrinford was watching William, who was trying to shimmy back up the bannister, having just slid down it for the fifth time. Without anyone to tell him not to do things, he was taking the opportunity to test everything he’d been forbidden to do. He was already filthy from his experiment with the chimney.

“ _You_ will be sent to Bailey School, a fine establishment where my own sons obtained a suitable education. On holidays, you may visit me in Ipswich if you like. Or you may remain at school.”

“What about my brother?”

Sherrinford’s face did something unpleasant, and Mycroft, who had learned to observe what people’s faces did when they were unguarded, understood that he did not like William, despite having just met him.

“You have other family, on your mother’s side. They will take him in.”

“We must stay together,” Mycroft said, folding his arms defiantly. William was his responsibility, and he would not be parted from him. “I will take care of him.”

“He is too young for Bailey School, and I do not think he is suited for that type of education. Perhaps he could be apprenticed to a tradesman when he is older.”

“William— _Sherlock_ is very intelligent,” he replied. “He ought to have a better education.”

“Then let your mother’s family see to it,” Sherrinford said. “What I have put aside is for my family’s comfort, not for the financial ruin of a cousin who did not plan for his own family’s needs.” And that was the end of it.

Uncle Rudy must come soon. He would help Mycroft figure everything out. They might both go to live with him, but he knew that this was an inherently bad idea. Rudy’s business was like a house of cards, always needing loans to keep it going, and more loans to pay the original loans. Rudy was constantly on the brink of making a fortune, but never quite managed to break even.

His uncle would not be able to send them both to school; he didn’t care about such things, being a self-educated man. As Mycroft saw it, his uncle was still a child in most ways, in no position to raise children himself. Perhaps Rudy would take them both in, let them live with him, but what kind of future would they have?

One of them needed a formal education, and it would have to be Mycroft. He would need to study hard, pass his exams early, and get settled in a career where he could advance. Then William could come to live with him. _How many years would that take?_ At least five, he thought. Yes, he could manage it in five.

William was almost six. He might live with Rudy and go to the local school until he was ten, perhaps, and if he did well, Sherrinford might agree that he could come to Bailey School and finish his education. Or maybe Rudy’s business would do well, and he could afford to send William to school. Neither of these things was impossible, he told himself.

But William wasn’t like boys who go to school. His mind didn’t work like other children’s minds, and he wouldn’t even attempt to fit in, as Mycroft had. If only Mycroft had more time to teach him these things— the important things that children learn from their families and their peers. Since he was born, he had only ever been around servants, his brother, and his parents, who indulged his temperament, or at least ignored it most of the time. Socially speaking, William was a feral child.

He wrote a letter to Rudy, begging him to come. It was a conversation they should have face to face, if he was to be sure Rudy was not lying about his finances. He would have to persuade him to take William for a few years.

Uncle Rudy arrived a week later. Though he knew that Rudy’s life was a disaster and his business sense highly questionable, Mycroft liked the man. Rudy didn’t mind being different from other people. Maybe he would not mind having William live with him.

William came running when he heard his uncle’s voice. His normal greeting was to fling himself into Rudy’s arms and let himself be lifted off the ground, above his head, and spun around. This time, Rudy patted his head and said that he was too heavy for spinning. “When do you plan to stop growing?” he asked, laughing.

“Never!” shrieked the child.

“Then you’ll be needing this,” he said, taking a bag of sweets from his pocket. “Growing takes a lot of energy.”

Turning, he smiled at Mycroft. “And look at you— such a young man! Your mother would be proud.”

“Uncle, my cousin Sherrinford has been handling all the legal things. He’s gone to town now, to talk to the solicitor. I thought we might have a chat before he returns.”

“Say no more,” Rudy replied, winking. “I’ve met the man. A painstaking fellow. I’m sure he’ll iron out all the pesky details so we won’t have to bother.”

While William showed Rudy his bannister-sliding skills, Mycroft made tea. When it was ready, they sat in the kitchen, as the parlour furniture had already been removed.

“My brother must have an education,” he told Rudy, getting right to the point. “He is highly intelligent, but wants order and discipline to make something of himself. My cousin has offered to put me through school, but does not think my brother has the aptitude for that. I disagree, and am hoping you might have a solution.”

Rudy dropped two cubes of sugar into his cup and stirred. “Your cousin is right; your brother does not have an aptitude for school. But he has an aptitude for learning, which is what matters.”

“But what are we to do?” His heart sank. “My cousin would send him into a trade.”

“You must not sneer at tradesmen, Mycroft. Genius takes many guises, and in a trade your brother may find an even better outlet for his mind than he would find at school. He might be an excellent—“ He paused to consider William, who was poking a knife into the keyhole. “An excellent locksmith. Or something else. We shall see how he grows.”

“Uncle, someone must feed him and pay for his clothing. He must have a bed to sleep in. It will be at least five years before I can do that. Sherrinford says Mother’s family must take my brother in, as he is providing for me and cannot afford the two of us.”

“Of course, of course,” Rudy said. “He will live with me. And you may visit on holidays.”

He remembered Rudy’s house in Holborn, a draughty, cluttered mansion mostly run by a manservant and a cook. Rudy wasn’t married, and had never had children, but had a lot of friends, he recalled. He liked parties, eating and drinking and going to the theatre. It wouldn’t be a very settled life for William, who was inclined to set his own rules even when rules were already in place. But for a few years, perhaps it would do.

“Come here, tyrant,” Rudy said, snatching William into his lap. “Would you like to live with me?”

“Do you have a dog?” the boy asked.

“Dogs, cats, whatever you like.”

“I’d like a snake, then.” He glanced up at his brother. “Please.”

Rudy stayed at Woodley Hall for a week. Sherrinford had determined that Father’s company would have to declare bankruptcy and be divided among creditors because there were no more assets that could be sold, no more loans that could be borrowed to pay off investors. Mycroft had hoped that his father’s holdings in Uncle Rudy’s company might help the situation, but Rudy said that Father’s shares were not many, and had been returned to the company on his death. He was evasive when questioned by Sherrinford as to what assets his company owned.

People came to the house and took things away— the dining room table and chairs, the settees and armoires and wardrobe, the paintings from the walls and even the books from the library. Before they were carted away, Mycroft managed to salvage a copy of _Gulliver’s Travels_ , which he gave to William.

“It’s an adventure tale,” he told him. “It’s all about a man who is shipwrecked and finds a race of tiny people”

“Like fairies?”

“No, just really small people. He later finds a land where giants live.”

“Are there any pirates in the story?”

“Yes, he’s attacked by pirates several times.”

William nodded. “I’ll read it.”

His brother was good at overhearing what people talked about without appearing to be paying attention. Mycroft hadn’t needed to teach him this. There were always secrets in Woodley Hall, and though he sometimes didn’t understand what he overheard, William would report things to Mycroft and ask him to explain when he was confused.

“Did Father have an accident?” he asked.

Mycroft was packing William’s things, feeling the gravity of everything that had happened. He pressed his lips together, not wanting to bring up that particular memory. He had told his brother that their father had been shot in the woods while hunting. “Who said that?”

“Uncle Rudy told Sherrinford, _it was no accident._ But neither of them went on about it, so I don’t know why he said that.”

“The coroner said it was an accident,” Mycroft replied. “He accidentally shot himself.”

“In the head?”

“Yes.” Keeping the answers short would be best, he decided. “Did you think I was lying to you?”

“Only after I thought about it,” William said. “If he was walking along with his rifle and it went off, the barrel would be pointing down. Wouldn’t he have shot his leg or his foot?”

It was hard to tell lies to William, Mycroft decided, because he always found the holes in them. It was the details that were his undoing.

“I saw him,” Mycroft said. “He was shot in the head, with a pistol.”

“He wasn’t hunting, then.”

“No, he didn’t have a shotgun with him.”

“So it wasn’t an accident,” William concluded. “He shot himself.”

Mycroft sighed. “Yes, he did.”

The boy nodded. “Why would he do that?”

There was no answer to this, at least not one that would satisfy a boy not yet six. Why would Father kill himself, leaving them alone, without any money? It was a selfish thing to do, really, thought Mycroft. It didn’t solve anything.

“I don’t know, William.”

William stood in the hall, a valise packed with clothing at his side and his violin case in his hands. The deerstalker was on his head, as always. He seemed to understand that what was happening was important, but his eyes kept flitting around the hall, and Mycroft guessed that he was more reserved than usual because most of the familiar furnishings had been removed. Always struck by even the smallest changes in things, the small boy ran his hand along the bannister as if to reassure himself that some things were the same.

“And what will you do while you’re living with Uncle Rudy?” Mycroft asked him. He had been preparing him for this over the last two days, hoping that some of his advice would stick.

“Read books and write letters to you.” He frowned a bit. “Uncle doesn’t have any woodlands. Or a pond.”

“No, he lives in Holborn. That’s in London. There are parks, though, and he has a garden; you’ll find many things to observe there. What do you promise _not_ to do in London?”

“Wander around by myself and be kidnapped. Talk to dodgy people.”

“Right. You _must_ promise, William. I won’t be able to see you often, and I don’t know whether Uncle Rudy will notice if you’re in trouble, so you must be sure to write to me if anything is wrong.”

The boy nodded. “When will I see you again?”

“Christmas holidays.” Hearing Rudy coming down the stairs, he held out his hand to his brother. “We must say goodbye now, brother mine.”

William looked at it but did not take it. For a moment, he bit his lip, and then, all in a rush, he threw his arms around Mycroft. “Why can’t we live here, just the two of us? You could teach me and we could walk in the woods every day, and Bessie will come back and cook for us.” His voice wobbled. “I don’t want everything to change.”

“Everything has to change, whether we want it to or not.” he said as gently as he could. “I’m going to school, brother. I’ll learn enough that I can get a good position and earn enough for us to live on. You’ll see; it won’t be long.”

“By Christmas?”

“Not that soon,” he said solemnly, “but I will come for you.”

“What if Uncle Rudy moves house and forgets to tell you? What if I’m in Australia?” His eyes filled with tears. “What if you can’t find me?”

“I will always find you, brother mine. While I’m not with you, keep your eyes open and learn things. Be smart and be kind. There are bad people in the world, and you must spot them before they spot you. And if people help you, be kind to them. There are never enough good people to go around, so you must be one of them.”

The boy nodded, wiping his eyes. “I’ve decided I’m not going to be a pirate, My. I’ll have to think of something else.” His lip trembled.

“You will. I’m sure of it.”

Rudy was ready to go then, the cab was waiting to take them to the train. They climbed in and drove off. Mycroft stood at the front door of the house that wasn’t his home any longer, watching them leave.

The last thing he did before he leftwas to visit the cemetery. It wasn’t a goodbye. Saying _goodbye_ or _farewell_ to their remains didn’t make sense. It was for himself, to see the place one more time and remember them. He did not expect to stand there again. In his mind, though, he would fix it like a photograph.

The graves were covered with snow. Most of the names he knew, but the many of the people were long dead, unknown to him. He had known five, and had seen each of them buried.

Grandmother Vernet was the first they buried. He didn’t remember her well, but she had come to live with them after her husband died, and had met her own death shortly after arriving. Mycroft remembered an austere woman with white hair who would speak no English.

Two little graves. _Anne Elizabeth Holmes. Charlotte Emily Holmes._ Two angels, one for each marker, two tiny souls who only stayed a few days.

_Adèle Vernet Holmes_. His mother’s grave still had flowers on it. He didn’t know where his father had found flowers at this time of year, but there was a bouquet there, now dried up.

The last grave had no marker yet, and snow had covered both the blood and the mound of dirt. Rudy had promised there would be a stone there, in time, and it would say _William Siger Holmes._ For now, it was marked only by snow, and Mycroft was the only one who knew who lay there.


	4. A Rare Quality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft studies at The Bailey School and, unable to visit Sherlock, writes to him. He receives an unexpected offer.

He wrote letters to his brother from the Bailey School, and sometimes William wrote back. While Mycroft described the studies that kept him up at night, William (when he wrote) usually drew sketches of insects or described the people who came to visit Rudy, telling him all the things he had figured out about them. He’d learned to play _Adeste Fideles_ and _Stille Nacht_ on his little violin, and promised to play them at Christmas. As far as Mycroft could tell, William wasn’t attending school, but had the run of Rudy’s house, including his library. As long as he was reading books, it would be okay, he told himself. Maybe he would write to Rudy and tell him what books to buy for him. Surely his uncle could manage that.

The Bailey School wasn’t detestable, but it did make him impatient. He started mid-term, and was plunged into his lessons. He made a point of getting to know his teachers, so they would understand he was serious and more determined than his peers. Because of the changes of the last year, he worried that he might find himself behind, but he found his lessons very simple, almost too easy. He wanted to skip over the things he’d already learned and go straight to the new things..

The education and connections provided there were just good enough for people whose background wasn’t so aristocratic but wanted to advance themselves. It wasn’t as good as the places rich people boasted of, people whose sons went to Oxford and Cambridge. Mycroft did not find it hard to get the highest marks, but knew that he would never go to either of those universities. Sons of bankrupt businessmen should consider themselves fortunate to attend the Bailey School, Cousin Sherrinford had told him.

For the first weeks, he mostly ignored his peers. Friendship was just another word for sentiment, which would not help him. On the other hand, acquaintances he made here could be people who would one day help him advance. He was not greedy for himself; his obligation to take care of his brother was foremost. When he cautiously began to evaluate his classmates, he found a few who were not objectionable.

A year after his parents died, he spent Christmas at school rather than with Cousin Sherrinford, who had refused to give him travel money to London. He wrote to Uncle Rudy, who promised to send money, but something must have happened, because it never arrived. Rudy’s lack of dependability had worsened. Mycroft no longer expected any help from his uncle, whether financial or support for William. He used the two weeks to study ahead, the sooner to move back to London.

Among his classmates was a boy named Henry Rowe. Mycroft didn’t set out to make him a friend, not at first. He was not at all like Winthrop, who always had something to say, usually just the right thing. Henry was a boy who daydreamed in class and, when startled out of his reverie, would blurt out odd things he’d obviously been thinking about, like how big the universe might be and what happened when you got to the edge, if it even had an edge. Or how the first birds had learned how to fly, or how fish learned to breath water. In maths class, he wanted to know whether humans had invented mathematics, or if they had merely discovered it, and why the Romans had never thought of zero or, indeed, why such an advanced civilisation had such a rudimentary system of numbers that made higher calculations nearly impossible.

He didn’t seem aware that other people were not thinking about these things, or have the slightest idea what his classmates thought about. In that, he reminded Mycroft a bit of his brother, except that William was always very deliberate in his remarks, however outlandish they sounded. He didn’t walk around in a dream, like Henry. William was always completely aware of his surroundings, and might have figured out what was expected of him, if he had cared.

But Henry sometimes walked into furniture and doors because he was thinking about evolution or mathematics or prepositions. He was very intelligent, Mycroft deduced, even brilliant, and his family was very rich. The only reason he wasn’t at Eton or Harrow was because whatever school he went to he would be dismissed from for daydreaming and not completing his lessons. It was the history teacher, Mr Ogden, who asked Mycroft to help when Henry failed his exam.

“You’re very focused, Holmes,” he said. “Maybe you can help Rowe by drilling him.”

It was second nature to Mycroft to explain things. Ever since his brother had learned to talk, a part of his duty as the elder brother was to answer constant questions about everything imaginable. So he drilled Henry, and in between the drilling, Henry asked questions, and Mycroft answered as well as he could.

Not many weeks went by before Mycroft began to realise that he enjoyed the hours he spent with Henry. Though he never seemed as focused on the matter at hand as he ought to have been, Henry had interesting ideas and loved speculative thinking. He wrote sonnets in English and Latin. Mycroft could see him becoming a successful writer. He was also musical and played the piano exceptionally well. There is a place in the world for dreamers, Mycroft realised.

It was not long after this realisation that Mycroft began to understand where their friendship was moving. The kinds of conversations they had were not what most boys talked about. Henry talked about beauty and passion and art, and, in the same breath, about physics and chemistry and the universe. Mycroft, who had always been forced into practicality, loved thinking about these things, making connections between them. He looked forward to their time together, and when they were apart, he found his thoughts going to him.

And his thoughts were not always academic. In spite of being looked on as eccentric, he was a beautiful boy. Mycroft noticed his long fingers when he was trying to explain something by drawing in the air, or when he was playing piano. He noticed how lovely his voice was when he recited poetry from memory. He saw how his eyes sparkled when Mycroft suggested something he hadn’t thought of. There was no jealousy in Henry, no rivalry. His was a pure soul.

He began to wonder if he loved Henry.

Boys grow up and marry. His own parents had done so, and had made a disaster of what ought to have been a partnership. Mycroft had always thought of this social expectation in the abstract. He would never marry himself, he decided, lest it bias his judgement.

The love that two men might share, however— this was something both natural and freer of the economic realities of the love of a man and a woman, who must eventually reproduce, live in a house, and pay their bills. The Greeks had accepted marriage as an economic necessity. They had also accepted that men naturally love one another, with their souls and their bodies. Such a love seemed less complicated.

But it was still love, and he had never forgotten his father’s last words to him. _Love is a dangerous disadvantage, my son. Very simple, very destructive._ He had begun to understand them. Love was an obsession, opposed to rational thinking. It felt seductively good, but it was a trap, an indulgence he could not afford. He could see its destructive potential..

Henry did not notice his change in manner, which made it all the more painful when he leaned over and kissed Mycroft one evening as they read their Latin lesson.

The kiss was something he had thought about and even dreamed about. It was an innocent kiss, but he wanted it— _how_ he wanted it. It freed him from so many things he had simply accepted— that he was not made for love, that duty would always come first for him. One little kiss swept all that away, and urged him to forget all his plans, all his obligations. It tempted him.

But he loved his brother as well, and that was a different passion, one pure and selfless. William had been born into a terribly disordered family and had only his older brother to rely on. He was too innocent to understand, too young to make his way by himself. His ultimate happiness depended on Mycroft, and would for some years. In a kinder world, they would have had parents who did this for them. But the world was indifferent, and it was now Mycroft’s responsibility to make sure they both succeeded.

“I’m sorry, Henry,” he said. “You’re my friend, and I hope that will always be true. But I do not have those feelings for you.”

Somehow he was able to say these words which he didn’t truly feel. His punishment for lying, for putting his brother first, was watching Henry’s face fall, his flushed embarrassment, and his awkward leaving.

They did not spend time together after that, and by the end of the summer term, Henry had failing marks in all subjects. It was another thing for Mycroft to feel guilty about, but he knew that it had been necessary.

Christmas approached, his second at Bailey. His parents had died two years ago. He was fifteen, his younger brother nearly eight, and he felt a troubling sense of urgency about finishing school. The hand of time was on his back constantly, chivvying him along.

He continued to write to William, who answered his letters sporadically. He could see his brother progressing, though his penmanship did not improve. William’s mind was one that made connections, leaping between things he’d read and things he observed. But gaps were forming in his store of knowledge. This, Mycroft thought, was because his situation was so limited.

He remembered how William had loved looking up at the stars, listened eagerly as Mr Murray explained the observable difference between stars and planets. But in the city few stars could be seen, so thick was the fog that mixed with the smoke from the chimneys. William wrote how the choking smog often obscured the sky. _Like swimming through a muddy pond,_ as he described it. In Rudy’s garden he sketched insects, especially bees, and said he’d looked them up in one of his uncle’s books. He’d had a snake for a while, and kept it in a glass aquarium, feeding it mice he caught in a little trap he designed himself. But the snake died, and he carefully de-fleshed it and preserved its skeleton. His mind craved understanding, but was kept in check by its own limitations and the narrowness of his surroundings.

Mycroft asked for a list of books he was reading, and he complied. The titles told Mycroft that they were penny dreadfuls and yellow-backs, stories about pirates, highwaymen, and criminals. _The Demon Ship. Gentleman Jack. The Mysteries of London._

Nobody really wants to read the _Aeneid_ or _Paradise Lost_ or _Canterbury Tales_ — or even Shakespeare. These aren’t what a boy who once wanted to be a pirate would choose to read. But everyone reads these things because schools require it. Reading them gives educated people a common understanding that uneducated people lack. It introduces to them ideas that they would not conceive of independently. It lifts them above their natural tendencies and builds their brains into engines that can govern, solve, and persuade.

Mycroft wrote to his uncle and informed him that his ward needed to read more history and literature. He suggested several titles, and asked if he might come to London for Christmas holidays.

Uncle Rudy wrote back, all promises and reassurances that Sherlock was doing fine. Certainly Mycroft might come for Christmas, but Rudy was unable to send him train fare at the moment. If Mycroft could buy his own ticket, Rudy would reimburse him.

Cousin Sherrinford told him it would be best if he stayed at school over the holidays, as he and his wife were traveling. He advised him to stay away from his Uncle Rudy, who (as he heard) was in the midst of legal troubles.

Another year went by without seeing his brother. He had finished the curriculum at Bailey and, having no other choice, would go to live with Sherrinford in June and work as a clerk in his office. Because he would be providing his ward with room and board, his cousin explained, he would not be paying him much. This forced Mycroft to think about other opportunities. He might find a situation teaching at a boys’ school, one of those for poor children, and bring his brother to live with him. It wouldn’t be much, but he might provide for them both. Or he might ask Rudy if he knew of a clerkship or something similar.

He wrote to his uncle, explaining that he was interested in coming back to London and wondering if there were opportunities for a boy like him, educated and willing to work hard. It was weeks before Rudy answered his letter, and then only to say he would ask around and let him know.

Near the end of the Lent Term, Mr Ogden invited him to his house. It was not uncommon for teachers to have their best pupils come for tea and conversation, but Mycroft was surprised to find he was the only guest.

Mr Ogden was a man of about fifty, Mycroft judged, a widower who had spent his entire teaching career at Bailey School, after having been a student there. In addition to teaching history, he was headmaster of the upper school. He’d been very kind in his treatment of Henry Rowe, and did not hold it against Mycroft that the boy hadn’t succeeded.

“I remember that you were very patient with Rowe,” he told Mycroft. “You’d make a good teacher, but I think you could be more. You have a mind not only for history, but for people. I observe in you a rare quality, Holmes. You are perceptive and shrewd without being disingenuous. I have seen how you talk to your peers and your teachers, and how they listen to you. You know how to frame your words for an audience.”

“I have merely practiced what Mr Hill has taught us in our composition lessons,” Mycroft replied.

Mr Ogden smiled. “You’ve been with us nearly three years, Holmes. What are your plans when you finish here?”

“I will need to find work, sir, in order to put my brother through school. I might look for a school job, teaching history or literature.” He blushed. “There are some schools that hire those without a university degree.” He did not mention that those were schools for poor children, poorly paid and as gruelling as the treadmill. “My cousin is a solicitor, and says I might work in his office, though that will not pay so well. My uncle is in business; I have asked him for references as well. I hope to set aside a portion of my wages so that I can put my brother through school and attend university myself.”

“Your parents cannot afford school for you both?”

“I am an orphan, sir, dependent on cousins and uncles to pay my way.”

Mr Ogden appeared to consider this for a while. He filled their cups again, and then spoke. “I do not mean to fill your head with idle praise, Holmes, because having a talent does not equal success. It puts an obligation on one, to live up to the potential one has been given. What I mean to say is, you have a mind that might one day do great things. You only want the opportunity to learn, so you can do them. It would be a great waste of your potential to teach at a charity school or work in an office, and you would have little to show for your efforts. No, you are meant for greater things.”

Weighing the headmaster’s words, Mycroft understood that an opportunity was about to be set before him, and he must consider it carefully. “Yes, sir.”

“A friend of mine has made an offer. He lives in Oxford and teaches at one of the colleges there. He is a brilliant man, Holmes, a man with many influential friends. One of his many projects is a foundation whose purpose is to identify talent in boys who do not come from privilege. I was telling him about you, and he is looking for someone to help him with his research and writing, a sort of secretarial assistant. In return, he will obtain funding for your studies at Oxford.”

“But… I’m not yet sixteen, sir.”

“You are ready for this, my boy,” Mr Ogden said. “I’ve seen how you have applied yourself here, studying ahead and finishing every course early. You should have gone to Eton or Harrow, but here at Bailey you have excelled, even taking on your own research in some areas. Mr friend is giving you this opportunity because he does not believe brilliance is limited to the offspring of privileged men. He has done this for other boys before you, and in every case, his hunches have proved correct. This is why I spoke to him about you. I hope that you will accept.”

It was more than he could believe, one of those moments when he had to step up and take what luck was handing him. “Thank you, sir. I will be very pleased to accept, and hope that I will not disappoint you.”

He wrote to William that very night, telling him that he might have a chance to attend university. Not having met his benefactor, Mr Landon, he was not sure whether he might visit his brother, or possibly bring him to live with him. He did not mention these possibilities, but told William that it was a great opportunity for him to better both their lives.

William’s letters continued a couple times a month, and were much the same as ever, filled with observations, imaginings, and sketches of bees. His current fascination was chemistry, particularly something he called _elements._ He mentioned a few alarming things about Rudy, who loved putting on _entertainments,_ as William called them. His uncle had become very interested in photography, and had invested in a company that was working on better cameras and quicker processes for developing photos. He promised to read the books Mycroft had recommended after he had finished _Murders in the Rue Morgue_ , a book by an American named Edgar Allen Poe. He sometimes went on _jaunts_ with Rudy or one of his friends, but remembered he wasn’t to go out alone.

That he was writing at least told Mycroft that his brother’s life had some order, but he felt guilty that he was going to attend Oxford, and his brother was mostly being ignored. From his letters, it sounded as if he spent hours of his day alone, reading, exploring the house and garden, and observing visitors to the house. He knew that he must pay a visit to Rudy when school let out and make sure his brother was being cared for, but his new opportunity might preclude that.

_When I’m settled at Oxford, I’ll ask if you can come visit,_ he said.


	5. Things He Never Expected

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft goes abroad with his new sponsor, makes a friend and learns a few things about himself.

When the summer term ended, he left Bailey and moved his few possessions to Oxford. No sooner had he settled into his room in Landon’s house than he was told to pack up again, whatever he would need for three months. The Landons were going to the continent for the summer, and he was to accompany them.

They had two grown daughters and a son, two years older than Mycroft, who was studying history at Oxford. Their daughters would not be accompanying them. Their son was currently in Athens, staying with a friend of his father and looking at the restoration of the Acropolis. That was where they planned to meet him.

They took a train to Dover, a ferry from Dover to Calais, a train to Paris, and from there another train to Rome, and another, until they reached the tip of Italy and sailed around the Peloponnesus to Athens. There they were met by friends and taken to a villa outside the city.

The brightness of Greece was dazzling. Squinting at the painfully illuminated landscape, he realised that the sun didn’t actually shine in England, it just glowed a bit through the haze, most of the time hovering like a pale disk behind the cloud cover. Greece was blinding and hot, the buildings as white as sun-bleached bones. The air smelled like oranges and sea salt. As they rode through the city, he could see the Acropolis from a distance, the ancient city on the hill.

It was amazing how many colours there were. In the small photographs he’d seen of the Acropolis and other sights, everything looked small and dull, just piles of rocks and columns that had somehow managed to stay erect for ages. And when he’d thought of Socrates and his students, he’d always pictured them in the quad at Bailey, sitting on the grass, perhaps, because ancient Greeks might not have desks.

The villa was surrounded by rocky hills and domed by the bluest sky he’d ever seen. Olive trees grew around the house. In England, everything seemed to grow without much encouragement; here, the land required much more effort to produce even a little.

Their hosts welcomed them as they climbed out of the carriage. A young man, blond and smiling, stepped forward.

“I’m Thomas.” Landon’s son held his hand out. “You must be Mycroft Holmes.”

At the advanced age of nearly sixteen, Mycroft had experienced several moments that for some reason had impressed themselves on his mind. He remembered a day when he and William went to the pond, the way the water lay so still, and they could hear the croaks of frogs and the buzzing of insects. He recalled that William was determined to catch a frog that day, and Mycroft had to pull him out of the pond when he fell in, but that mishap wasn’t the moment that stayed in his mind, like a photograph. It was the moment when they arrived and stood in silence, the sunlight slanting through the trees, the smell of the water, the dense air that barely moved. William at his side, lost in pure wonder. Mycroft stood, taking it in, setting it in his memory. It was a moment when he realised the mutability of all things, that people have seasons just as the world does, and that this moment would soon be last year’s leaves, crunching under his feet.

In later years, he often went back to that memory. He collected others, never the celebrations or the moments of despair, but the quiet, ordinary ones. Sitting in Father’s chair, reading to William, his little face intent on the letters, his head leaning against Mycroft’s shoulder. He ran his hands through his brothers curls, memorising each one. He felt William’s hand patting his face when he closed his eyes for a moment to think, heard his voice urging, _read, My._

It wasn’t because he anticipated losing these things. He had never expected his parents to die or the chaos that followed, never expected that he would have to leave his brother in order to prepare himself to care for him. He supposed that he was simply old enough at that point to see how time changes everything, and understand that moments are the only things we have that are worth anything.

Well, he couldn’t scrape a living out of memories. But thinking of those moments helped him through all the times he’d rather forget. He had them safely stored, like a warm blanket against the cold, like a stack of wood to feed his fire.

And here was another moment. Mycroft himself, suddenly too tall and skinny to be coordinated, his wrists sticking out of his jacket, his face flushed and sweaty in the bright sunlight. His own awkwardness contrasting with Thomas’s relaxed stance. Sun-bleached hair framed by blue sky, his square face ruddy and smiling. Linen trousers, some dirt at the knees, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing tanned arms.

The moment went into his storehouse before he even thought about it.

“I’m pleased to meet you.” He took the hand, warm and firm, noticing that its owner had been digging in the garden and had dirt under his fingernails. “You’re the historian.”

Laughter, bright as the sky, clear as the air. “Well, my father would have it that I’m to be an historian. A _modern, political_ historian, writing about the doings of Prussia and Austria and the Ottomans. For my part, I’d rather think about the Spartans and the Athenians and their turf wars. Dig them up, I should say. I’d like to be an archaeologist, uncover the clues they left behind. Modern politics are so… tedious.” He grinned, and Mycroft glanced at Mr Landon, who was smiling and shaking his head.

“Surely the past informs the present,” Mycroft murmured.

It wasn’t a very impressive observation to make, and he suddenly wanted very much to impress Thomas Landon. He wished he hadn’t worn his dark suit for travel (chosen because it wouldn’t show dirt as much) and that he wasn’t sweating quite so much (which was impossible, given the climate). He wished he hadn’t grown in height so much recently, and had had time to fill out more. He was aware of how reedy and pale he must look under the bright sky.

Brown as a nut, Thomas looked like he spent much of his time outdoors. He had probably played rugby at Eton, maybe switched to cricket at Oxford, not being quite tall enough for rugby at that level. Muscular, but not overly so, he looked like a man who might climb mountains for fun.

“We’ll be sharing a room,” Thomas told him as he carried Mycroft’s bag upstairs. He would take him around the city, be his guide.

There was dinner, just their hosts and the Landons and himself. He was so tired by the time they were served, he could barely stay awake. When they’d eaten, Thomas nudged him and led him up the stairs to his bed. “You’ll feel more lively tomorrow,” he said. “Pleasant dreams.”

In the morning Thomas led him on a tour of the city, walking until Mycroft’s feet nearly gave out, at which point he steered them into an outdoor cafe.

“You have studied Greek?” he asked as they sat in the shade, drinking the thick, strong Turkish coffee.

“Of course.” He remembered the cacophony of voices on the boat, Italian mixing with a Greek that sounded nothing like Plato. “Attic and Homeric.”

“You’ll find it easy to read the signs, but the modern pronunciation is entirely different from what you have learned. And there are many Turkish words, added during the occupation. It’s all in layers, over time, new words replacing the old terms, like the city itself. For the past thirty years, they’ve been clearing all the Byzantine and Ottoman clutter from the Acropolis, and they’re going to restore the Parthenon, as much as possible.”

He’d spent a summer in Pompeii, he told Mycroft, while he father was in Rome. “That’s when I decided I would rather dig up history than teach it, though I’ll probably end up doing that as well.” He talked with passion about all he had learned in Pompeii. The remains of that city, frozen in time by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, had revealed so much about the lives of ordinary people living there. “Rather convenient for historians, that disaster,” he said.

Mycroft smiled. “Rather inconvenient for those living there, I imagine.”

“You,” he said, smiling at Mycroft. “I can see why my father has taken you under his wing. You’re one who’s going to make history.”

“I don’t see myself in that role,” he replied, colouring at Thomas’s praise. “I would like to work at a foreign embassy, I think. But family obligations might require me to remain in England.”

“Family? What does your father think?”

“I am an orphan.” He hated having to explain this, but Thomas’s face at once softened in sympathy. “My parents died when I was thirteen. Even before that, things were… irregular in our household, my mother often ill and my father’s business failing. I have a younger brother, seven years my junior, whom I’ve always looked after. It’s him I’m concerned about.”

“Where is he? At school?”

“He lives in London, with my uncle. He’s only eight, and I’m afraid he mostly schools himself. As soon as I can, I plan to establish myself in a career and take him in. He’s quite brilliant.” He ducked his head, surprised to find his throat tightening at the memory of the little boy he hadn’t seen in almost three years.

“He’s lucky to have such devoted a brother,” Thomas said, smiling. “I unfortunately have only sisters. They’re not devoted, but love to henpeck me. I suppose they would call that a form of devotion. Both older, one married and one engaged to be. You will meet them at some point, I suppose.”

“I would be honoured.”

Thomas laughed. “The honour will be all theirs, I’m afraid. They’re silly things, and won’t know what to make of a serious boy like you. How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“I’m nearly sixteen.”

“Tall for your age. Well, my father thinks you’re bound for great things.”

“I hope so.” He wondered if this sounded too conceited. “I’ll work hard; I would hate to disappoint him.”

“I can see that.” Thomas smiled. “But for the next two weeks, you’ll have some fun, and learn some things as well. I’m responsible for the fun part, though my father has restrictions on what kind of fun is appropriate. Don’t worry, I’m not set on corrupting you. You just look like you need a holiday from solemnity and industry and whatever other virtues you’ve been collecting.”

He feared for a while that Thomas would prove wild and get them both into trouble, but though his new friend enjoyed an evening at the taverna, he spent most of his leisure immersed in scholarly literature and talking to Mycroft about what he read there.

“Archaeology is a brand new field,” he said _. “_ People have always dug things up and tried to learn about the people who left them behind, but now it’s becoming a real science. Next summer I’m going to Egypt. Maybe you’ll go with me, if Father isn’t being tiresome.”

“I would like that.”

Mr Landon spent his time visiting friends, one of whom was opening a school just outside of Athens. He never insisted that Mycroft accompany him anywhere while they were in Greece, and seemed happy that he and Thomas were getting along so well. It was the first holiday where Mycroft could remember not having any responsibilities.

Every afternoon they lay down once the midday meal was over. He learned the expediency of sleeping during this time when he found himself nodding over dinner, which was at nine each evening. Many evenings their hosts had guests over for dinner, which was followed by music and drink, which inevitably led to dancing. These were social responsibilities, a new experience for him. Though he had always been reticent, never conversing willingly, the Landons were easy to talk to, and their friends spoke English well. As educated people, they enjoyed debate and wordplay, and told Mycroft stories from their history and taught him idiomatic sayings in Modern Greek. He learned everything he could absorb.

He was surprised to discover that in Greece, many of the traditional dances were between men. Thomas taught him some so that he wouldn’t sit on the side, _cloaked in British reserve._ Mycroft felt clumsy, but Thomas was so good-natured about his missteps that he finally relaxed and almost enjoyed himself.

He caught himself smiling a lot, mainly when he was looking at Thomas. The smile he received in return was unexpected, but not unwelcome.

They spent their days seeing the sights. Mycroft enjoyed seeing the ancient theatre, built into the south slope of the Acropolis. Thomas had him stand in the orchestra and recite part of Pericles’ funeral oration to show how good the acoustics were. Seated in the top row, he could hear Mycroft perfectly. “Now, imagine doing that while wearing one of those heavy masks,” he said. 

After the evening meal, they often sat in the garden and talked late into the night. It was these hours that Mycroft appreciated most, and sometimes felt a pang that he was enjoying himself so much while he had no idea what his younger brother was doing, what his life was like, or who was making sure he learned what he needed to know.

“You’re worried about him,” Thomas said, apparently reading his expression. He’d lit a cigar, even though his father wouldn’t approve. “Why? You said he was with your uncle.”

“Yes. I haven’t seen him in nearly three years, and my uncle is not a person who… he isn’t very…”

“You don’t trust him.”

“No, not completely. He’s a good man, I think, but not very reliable. He has no children of his own, and doesn’t understand what they need. He treats my brother like a miniature adult, letting him run about the house unsupervised.”

“You’ll go to see him over Christmas holidays, won’t you?”

He hated to admit just how short on funds he was, how obligated he already felt to the Landons for all they had given him. “I’m not sure.”

Thomas, always perceptive, understood. “I’ll see that my father gives you a bonus before holidays so you can buy a ticket to London.”

The gratitude he felt was more than he could express. “Thank you.” Maybe Thomas saw the tears in his eyes before he wiped them away.

On the morning they left Athens, he said goodbye to his new friend, expressing how much he had enjoyed their time together.

“I’ll be back in Oxford for the start of Michaelmas term,” Thomas said. “We’ll be roommates again, if you can stand it.”

“I look forward to it,” he said with as much gravity as he could muster. Inexplicably, he felt like weeping. Was it really possible to become so close to another person in just a few short weeks? It was the newness of it all, he decided, the strangeness of the place and his own feeling of being the alien here, that had created this sudden bond. It would subside into something less emotional over time. With a stiff smile, he held out his hand. “Goodbye.”

“Come here, you solemn old thing,” he said, grabbing Mycroft into an unexpected hug.

Their journey took them to France, where he keenly felt the absence of his new friend. His French was very good, thanks to his mother, and the work was interesting. Still, he missed the evenings, sitting in the garden or lying in their beds, Thomas talking about history and philosophy and literature. Mycroft had talked, too, about books he’d read and travels he hoped to make. He never said much about his family.

Sometimes he felt that he and William had deserved better parents. He resented his father for being so impulsive, spending so much on the house’s furnishings, as if he could make up for his mother’s ill health by buying her things. He remembered how he would spend weeks in the city on business, sending letters home to her, promising new things— dresses, jewellery, even a new horse, though Mycroft had never seen her ride, not since he was old enough to recall. He would talk about going to France or Italy, maybe taking an ocean cruise. There was a time when Mycroft had thought his family wealthy, but when he saw what became of these grandiose plans, he began to realise that they only looked prosperous. Like the fine clothing they wore, it was a nothing but a pretence.

His mother was always _delicate_. He had heard Bessie talking to Annette, saying that she shouldn’t have had children at all. This made him wonder if he was the cause of her ill-health. Perhaps she had been robust up until his birth, and irretrievably ruined by carrying three more children. It wasn’t her fault that she was ill, he knew. At one point, Father had talked about buying a villa and moving them all to Italy, where her health could finally improve, but that— like so many other things he dreamed of— was never to be realised.

He was sure his parents had loved one another. Unfortunately, love also seemed to have killed them both.

He spent the remaining weeks of summer improving his French and being scribe, secretary, and messenger for Mr Landon. His employer seemed pleased with how quickly he took on his duties and improved at them, how he eagerly took on extra tasks. By the end of their time in France, he could take dictation as fast as Mr Landon could speak, writing up his notes and letters in a neat, legible hand.

He had learned where to buy stationery, ink, tobacco, coffee, and brandy in Paris, knew which streets to avoid, how to negotiate with merchants and servants, and how to cuss out street boys who taunted him on his errands. Thomas had advised him to take up boxing at Oxford, as it would build his upper body and reduce his belly, which was much paunchier than he liked after weeks of food better than any he’d ever tasted. Given the opportunity, he tried every dish offered and developed his palate. French cuisine was so much better than English fare— boiled beef and tasteless vegetables. The French had developed the art of the patisserie, with all its wonderful pastries and cakes. He walked everywhere to keep his figure trim, but it seemed that he had inherited the unfortunate build of the Holmes men— tall and stocky, inclined to corpulence.

As their final week approached, Mr Landon insisted that they visit Switzerland and do some hiking. “We’ll soon enough be back in harness,” he said, “which in my case means a sedentary existence.” He complained that he had put on at least a stone over the summer, in spite of his wife’s nagging to walk more.

They stayed in the village of Meiringen, whence on the morrow they would hike to see the famous Reichenbach Falls, and then continue on to spend the night at Rosenlaui. Mr Landon proclaimed the falls a wonder, and Mrs Landon expressed her interest in buying a painting of the scene for the sitting room, if such a thing could be found.

The hike was strenuous, but they took it slowly, stopping to look over the landscape. After a good hour’s climb, they could hear the falls roaring. When they came around the bend, they could see them, a spectacular sight.

Standing in the mist, peering into the thundering cloud below, Mycroft unexpectedly felt a sense of dread such as he had never before felt. He remembered his brother, who could never be kept away from heights, and had often scared Mycroft with his willingness to jump from tree limbs into the pond, when they used to go there on hot days. He remembered the cold Christmas, their last day of innocence, when they heard the shot echoing off the bare branches. It was the end of their life, as it had been.

He felt dizzy. Mr and Mrs Landon were debating about the height of the falls and the depth of the water below, judging by the churning they could see. They were quite close to the edge. He pressed himself against the rock face.

As Mr Landon turned to ask him something, he must have noticed his discomfort. “My boy, what is it?”

Mrs Landon stepped towards Mycroft, laying a hand on his sleeve. “Oh, Robert, it’s the height. Not everyone likes looking down a precipice. Let’s head back to the hotel and have some tea.”

She tucked her hand under his arm and they walked. On the way back, she chatted to him about Thomas’s childhood exploits, most of which involved digging up the garden.

When they reached the hotel, he took her gloved hand and bowed. “Thank you, Mrs Landon.”

She patted his cheek gently. “You must never be ashamed. We all have fears.”


	6. A Misfortune Years in the Making

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft finally travels to London and finds that his brother is missing, his uncle in jail.

They arrived in Oxford just days before Michaelmas Term began, and there was much to do to get ready for his new life. Mrs Landon helped him purchase two new suits, one heavier for the winter months, a good pair of boots, an overcoat and hat. After his summer of gourmet food, he was no longer skinny, but not yet portly. His clothes looked well.

Thomas returned a day later and took up residence in the room across from Mycroft’s. They had the third floor of the house to themselves.

He dove into his lessons with enthusiasm, determined not to waste any of the free education he was receiving, and spent his free hours in Mr Landon’s office, copying his research notes and managing his filing. When Landon saw how quick and thorough he was, he had Mycroft read many of the scholarly papers he received and summarise them for him, saving him the time of reading them meticulously. One of Mycroft’s gifts was the ability to remember details from many sources and see how they connected.

“You are a kind of central exchange of information,” Landon remarked. “Leadership is common; this skill is not. You may never be prime minister, my boy, but I would not be surprised if that gentleman should seek your advice one day.”

The term went by quickly, and before Mycroft could take stock, they were sitting exams. He hadn’t heard from his brother in a couple of weeks, but Thomas had kept his promise and asked his father to pay for a ticket to London. He would be there in time to buy his brother a present, and was debating with himself whether he should simply take William shopping and let him pick out what he wanted, since he wasn’t sure what the boy would want or need. He would use the rest of his bonus to buy him some books. Most important, though, would be sitting the boy down and testing him to see what he’d learned in three years.

He thought about these things on the train, but by the time he’d walked from the station to Rudy’s house, he could only think about seeing William. Would he be glad to see his older brother after so much time? Would he be angry that he’d been away so long? Would he throw his arms around him as he had the last time they’d seen one another?

The house was as he remembered it, a forlorn old Georgian house in a neighbourhood that had seen better days. A sign had been nailed up on the front of the house: _Foreclosure in Process_.

Mycroft’s heart stopped. He went up the steps to the door and peered through the windows. There was broken glassware on the floor of the dining room, and empty bottles. It looked like all the furniture had been removed. Even the curtains were gone.

He noted the condition of the house itself, the trim in need of paint, the bricks wanting repair. Whatever had happened here had been years in the making, not an overnight misfortune. His instincts about Rudy had been correct, and he hadn’t followed through on them because he had put his own schooling first. This had seemed the best plan at the time. Now, as he looked at the decaying house, he realised the gravity of his error.

The neighbours told him that it had happened a few weeks earlier, a police raid on the house in the midst of a party attended by many questionable-looking people. They did not remember seeing a boy taken out with the other guests.

His next stop was the police station, where he learned that his uncle was in prison, charged with fraud and non-payment of debts. The initial charges had to do with the party, which was apparently a cross-dressing ball. These charges were later dropped, but other things turned up during the investigation. Rudy had been borrowing to pay off debts, borrowing more to pay off the new debts, misrepresenting his business to acquire lines of credit, and bribing people to look the other way.

Mycroft went to the prison and talked to his uncle.

“Where is my brother?” This was the only question he really needed an answer to. He didn’t care about Rudy’s money trouble, or even his deviant behaviour and queer friends. “Where is Sherlock?”

Ruby sat at a little table, separated from Mycroft by a screen. He looked years older than Mycroft had remembered him, and had completely lost his jaunty bearing. He looked like a man who’d had a load of bricks dropped on him.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, _you don’t know_? He was your responsibility!”

Rudy’s eyes shifted around, and he stammered, “I don’t... Everything happened so fast, I don’t know where he ended up. I suppose someone took him—“

“Someone? Can you give me the names of people who were there?”

He shook his head despondently. “I don’t know who they all were. It was a rather… spontaneous affair. I don’t know.”

“Some of these people you _don’t know—_ they have taken my brother. The police know nothing about it. If you think this wasn’t your fault, you are wrong, Uncle.” He was surprised at how little he cared about Rudy’s problems, or his feelings. “Do you realise that there are people who traffic in children? Hm?”

Rudy looked up, his eyes round. “No, Mycroft—“

“You have admitted that you did not know all the people who were there that night, so don’t tell me that your _friends_ would not do such a thing. I trusted you to keep him safe, and you have lost him! While you sit here in a cell, he may be in grave danger. So I will ask you again. Tell me who he might have gone with. There must have been people there he knew. What about your servants? What has happened to them? Would they have seen?”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “Maybe Stella and Fanny have him. They were dressing him up like a girl, having him sing for everyone. They might have taken him.”

“Who are these women? Do they have last names?”

“Thomas Boulton and Frederick Park*. Those are their real names.”

“You left my brother with homosexuals?”

“Female impersonators,” he replied. “There’s a long theatrical tradition of—“

Savagely, he cut him off. “But you don’t really _know_ , do you, Uncle? You don’t know who their friends are or what they would do with him.”

“My boy,” Rudy said, hanging his head. “I’m going to die in prison.”

Shaking, enraged, he rose to his feet. “I don’t care, Rudy,” he whispered. He pounded the table. “I— don’t— care! If you have killed my brother, you deserve to die! I hope they never let you out and that you finally, before your miserable life ends, understand what a terrible thing you’ve done.”

Not knowing what else to do, he walked to the telegraph office and sent a short note to Mr Landon explaining what had happened, and begging him to send a few pounds so he could stay somewhere while looking for his brother. In less than an hour, he had his reply.

— _Arriving on next train. R Landon._

On receiving this message, he buried his face in his hands and wept.

To Mycroft’s surprise, Thomas came with his father. The first thing the senior Landon did was find them a hotel and buy them dinner.

“You’re exhausted,” he told Mycroft. “There’s no use pursuing it tonight. You need some food and a good night’s sleep before we begin. And I would like to hear what has happened in as much detail as you can provide.”

Over a dinner which he could barely stomach but politely ate nonetheless, he explained what he had learned.

“These… performers,” Landon said. “We’ll locate them first. I know little about these things, but they seem our best lead. I am fairly certain we can find them.”

“The police have not interviewed them?” Thomas asked.

Mycroft shook his head. “My uncle only reluctantly gave me their names. They seem to have slipped out before the police started rounding up the guests. I doubt the police knew they were there, but their notoriety tells me that someone will know where they live.”

“And the servants, as well,” said Landon. “I’m sure they could tell us a thing or two.”

“This all happened days ago— weeks,” said Mycroft. He felt completely defeated. “If I’d known sooner what was happening…”

“It does no good to blame yourself,” the older man said. “We will do everything we can to find him.”

After a night with little sleep, Mycroft began what would be one of the longest days of his life. They located the housekeeper and cook first, and from them learned who some of the other guests were. Neither of them knew anything about Master Sherlock.

“Who took care of him?” he asked the housekeeper. “Who fed him and put him to bed?”

“Why, he did those things all by himself,” she replied. “He’d come to the kitchen if he was hungry, and sleep when he was tired.”

He voiced what he feared. “Was he in the habit of going out by himself?”

“The master said it was all right.” She looked a bit guilty now. “He said a child needs to learn independence. Considering all the boys running in the streets, it hardly made sense to keep him a prisoner in the house.”

Mr Landon put a hand on his shoulder before he could say what was on his mind: the child was only _eight years old_. How could anyone think he was old enough to be independent— or to provide for himself, as he might now be attempting to do?

They visited other guests, asked about a boy they might have seen, and then about the little girl who sang for the guests. Most remembered the girl, but no one had any idea what had happened to her after the police arrived.

One of the guests was able to give them the address of Stella and Fanny, who had last been seen with him. They found the house, in a somewhat fashionable neighbourhood, and knocked on the door. Mycroft’s hopes rose when they were announced. They were greeted by a young man who said he was Frederick Park, also known as Fanny.

Mycroft would have blurted out accusations, but again, Landon led the questioning. He was polite, but firm. They were trying to locate the boy, Sherlock Holmes, and had heard that he and Stella had last been seen with him.

“Poor little thing,” he said. “He’s been so torn up about his tiny violin. The bank took everything in the house. We haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

_Yesterday!_ His heart leapt. William had been here just a day ago, when Mycroft was staring through Rudy’s windows. He was alive. “Where would he have gone?” he asked.

He shrugged. “Hard to say. He was gone when we got up in the morning. Maybe he went back to the house for something. I suppose he has friends and might have gone to them.” He smiled. “I think he was tired of pretending to be a girl.”

“You—“ he began, not certain how he was going to put his thoughts into words without losing his temper. This person who sat smiling at him might be the last person who had seen William. Anything they could learn from him would help them. He drew a deep breath, composing himself.

Thomas patted his arm. “Why did you have him disguised as a girl?”

“At first it was a lark. He’s a pretty boy, and we asked him if he’d like to sing for the guests. He said he would, and we found clothes to dress him up. When we left— well, we were in a hurry.The court would’ve sent him to the workhouse, or given him to an orphanage. He didn’t want that, so we kept him here and said he was our niece.”

There was nothing more to say. They had broken no laws, Boulton emphasised. They were just doing what Rudy had asked. _Someone get the boy out of here,_ he’d said, and so they did.

The rest of the day, and several days that followed, were spent talking to people in the neighbourhood, consulting with the police, and walking the streets around the house.

By the end of the week, Mycroft had begun to fear that he was not going to find his brother. He hadn’t intended to give up, but he could tell that the Landons, while not wanting to say it unkindly, had decided that it was hopeless.

They ate dinner at the hotel, none of them knowing how to begin the conversation. After eating, they took their coffee into one of the parlours off the dining room.

Sensing the discomfort of his companions, Mycroft began.

“I must stay here, in London, and continue looking for him. You should go back to Oxford. I will get a job and find a room somewhere and continue my search.”

“Holmes, no—“ Thomas looked as if he wanted to shake him. “You can’t possibly think—“

Landon silenced his son with a glance, then turned to Mycroft. “This is not your fault, my boy. I understand your devotion, but it is not healthy at this point to set aside your own life to search for him. Leaving your education incomplete will not help you find him.”

He sighed. “He may be alive. I believe he is. I must continue to search for him while the trail is fresh.”

“You said you’d written to him. He has your address in Oxford. Eventually, he will look for you.”

Thomas nodded. “Perhaps he is even on his way there now.”

It was tempting to hope, but dangerous as well. “William is a child, intelligent, but not mature. I haven’t seen him in three years, and don’t know what he might do. He has no money, and can only live by questionable means. People will take advantage of him. He certainly isn’t old enough to make sensible decisions about his life.”

“ _You_ were,” Thomas said quietly. “You were old enough at nine. I didn’t know you then, but you made him your responsibility when he was born, you told me, and you took care of him when your parents died. If you were clever enough to do that, surely he will figure out what he must do now. You taught him, you showed him by example how to survive. Of course you must worry, but I believe he will find you.”

Miserable, Mycroft shook his head. “It was a mistake, sending him to Rudy’s alone. I should have gone with him. At the time, I wanted to complete my education so that I would be able to provide for him. I thought that was sensible. But I was wrong, and now he is lost.”

He closed his eyes, tears trembling beneath his lids, threatening to slide down his face.

Thomas put a hand on his shoulder. “You cannot make the world a safe place, even for yourself. There’s no reason to believe he’s lost. But he’s become a needle in the haystack that is London. Taking the time and resources to continue looking for him will only prevent you from completing your education and having the life you’ve planned.”

“My life is of no importance.”

“It is of importance to me,” Thomas said.

Mycroft met his eyes. What he saw there both thrilled and frightened him.

Mr Landon said, “You’ve done what you could, my boy, putting the police on his trail. They are the experts; they know how to find missing people. You must continue your studies and become the person you set out to be. I would hate to see you spend your life grubbing away at menial work. It will exhaust you and take away the bright future you might have. You are capable of so much more, Mycroft. Let the police do their jobs. I’m certain they will find him, or he will find you.”

“Do you have a photograph of him?” asked Thomas. “It might help the police to know who they’re looking for.”

He had one photograph of the two of them, but William was just three in the picture, his face still baby-round. Mr Landon had the idea of asking a police illustrator to draw what he might look like now, at almost nine years. The drawing could be printed in the newspaper and on fliers, spread about the neighbourhood.

When the drawing was done, he studied it, wondering about the boy who stared out of it. Did he still dream of adventure? Did he read books about pirates?

He tucked the precious old photograph into his pocket. “I let him down,” he said.

“You’ll find him.” Thomas squeezed his hand.

By New Year’s Day they were back in Oxford. Mycroft hadn’t spoken to his uncle before leaving London, but thought he might write him a letter. He wasn’t sorry for any of the things he’d said, but he knew that his anger was just an indulgence, without practical use. Being angry didn’t solve anything, didn’t motivate people to help you, and didn’t change what had happened. He honestly felt that he was justified in rebuking Rudy, but it did no good. He rebuked himself as well, going over the events of the last three years and thinking what he could have done differently.

While he was staring at paper, pen, and inkwell, trying to come up with words, Thomas called to him from the front door. A telegram had arrived.

He came down the stairs, his heart pounding. Mr and Mrs Landon had come into the hall as well. Afraid of all the bad news that might be typed on the thin sheet of paper inside the envelope, he opened it carefully, unfolded the telegram, and read.

For a moment he was stunned. He looked up at their expectant faces.

“My uncle is dead,” he said.

A funeral was held for Rudy, in spite of the fact that he’d taken his own life. Mycroft did not attend. It was Epiphany, and his work at school would start the following day. It was also his brother’s birthday, and he would not tarnish that day with a funeral.

He asked himself if he had pushed Rudy to that extreme, but did not have an answer. Life was cruel, certainly, and people must be kind. That was what he’d told William on that long ago day when they last stood in the hall, saying their goodbyes. Life had been cruel to them both, and people were often not so much unkind as stupid. It was their lack of attention, their self-centred belief that their own desires came before all else— this was what led to ruin. He had learned this the hard way, trusting Rudy to raise his brother, when he should have seen to it himself.

Other than Cousin Sherrinford and some distant relatives in France, Mycroft was now truly alone in the world. He went about his daily tasks with attentiveness but little joy. Before he knew it, two years had passed while he dutifully slogged forward, fulfilling an obligation which had lost its urgency.

He visited London once each year, checking in to see what the police had heard, but there was never any news. Rudy’s house had been sold, put into much better repair by the new owner. The neighbourhood had changed as well. Fewer boys hung out on corners, less litter collected in the streets, and a bobby regularly patrolled the area.

He never once saw a boy with curly hair, perhaps growing too tall too quickly for his breeches, wearing a deerstalker on his head.


	7. Choices, Made with Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft makes a difficult decision to remain in London, still trying to find his brother. A brief newspaper article ends his search.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thank all who are following this angsty tale and treasure your comments. Mycroft has had a lot of disappointments, but I promise he has had his last in this chapter.  
> In the next chapter, the brothers are reunited.

In the summer after Mycroft’s last year at Oxford, he spent a fortnight in Paris, a final indulgence before getting on with the business of life. There he arranged to meet Thomas, whom he hadn’t seen in a year. Thomas was studying at Sapienza Universita now, specialising in Roman history and working with other academics who were trying to establish scientific standards for the excavation of ancient sites.

Mycroft had never had a _best friend_ , but that was how Thomas described him to anyone who asked. He did not need to ask himself if he loved Thomas; he knew that he did. But when he thought of living his life without knowing what had happened to his brother, he felt disappointed in himself. The most important responsibility he’d taken on himself had ended in failure. Really, it hadn’t ended at all. He lived in limbo, unable to commit to anything at all until that was resolved.

They strolled after dinner, enjoying the late sunset. Months short of his twentieth birthday, Mycroft was now several inches taller than his friend, and had learned to keep away from pastries (most of the time) to avoid expanding his waistline. He looked sideways at Thomas, admiring him. He looked well, Mycroft thought, trim from the physical work he did and obviously happy. He’d grown a beard to avoid the trouble of shaving when he was at a dig site, he said; it made him look a bit scruffy, butincredibly virile.

It was a beautiful evening and many couples were taking the air as well. As dusk fell, they found a cafe where they could share a bottle of wine.

“Tell me about your parents,” Thomas said, filling their glasses.

Other than to say he was an orphan, Mycroft had never actually told Thomas the details of what had happened seven years ago, just the short version: _Mother died, Father went broke and died, we were handed off to relatives._

 _Could it really have been that recent, just seven little years?_ William would be thirteen now, the age Mycroft was when their parents died. He himself was nearly twenty, older than Mother when she married Father. His time at Oxford had just slipped by with no visible markers other than his degree.

“My mother wanted to sing opera,” he began. “Everyone said my father fell head over heels in love with her across a room, at a party. She was singing _Vedrai, carino. You will see, my dear, if you will be so good, the cure I have for you!_ He turned his head to see whose voice had sent shivers down his back, and saw the loveliest vision, a slender woman with eyes like glass. She was only seventeen, though, and her parents made her wait a year until they married. My father was a business man, but too romantic to be any good at it. He only wanted to shower his wife with gifts, and make her happy.”

Thomas smiled. “A romantic story.”

 _A tragic story_ , he thought. “I suppose at first she was healthy, but I don’t ever remember her being in good health. When she was not too ill, she played the piano and sang. After me, she had three more children. Two sisters died, and my brother lived. I was seven when he was born, but feared he would die as well, so I made him my charge. Our parents never paid us much attention. I don’t know when the money problems began, but by the time my mother died, my father owed more than he could pay off. He had mortgaged the family home, sold much of the land surrounding it. Even so, creditors were after him.”

“He died soon after your mother, you said.” The unspoken question was there, _how did he die?_

“It was two months after my mother’s death. He was like a ghost by then, wandering around the house without speaking, not seeing anything. He let all the servants go and we had no Christmas. William and I went out for a walk because there was nothing to do, and as we entered the woods we heard a shot. I went back later, when my brother was asleep, and found him. I didn’t tell William until the next day.”

“And you became an adult overnight.”

He nodded. “There wasn’t anyone else. My cousin only reluctantly accepted responsibility for me, and would not take William. I knew my uncle to be irresponsible, but there was no other choice.”

Another bottle was brought, glasses refilled.

“What will you do now? My father says you have some offers.”

“I will return to London. I have been offered a clerkship in the Home Office. The Foreign Office made me an offer as well, but would have required me to live abroad. A tempting offer, but I would rather stay in London.”

“I understand. I hope you will find what you seek.”

Slowly they walked back to the hotel. Paris was lighting its lamps for the night, and few stars could be seen. They paused on the Pont Alexandre III and enjoyed the view in silence. After a moment Thomas took his hand and cocked his head, smiling up at him. Gently, he lay a hand on Mycroft’s face.

“Will you let me kiss you?” he asked.

He had considered the possibility of this happening for over a year now. He had also carefully prepared an appropriate reply to any advances that Thomas might make. Mycroft would not be the one to suggest any such thing. He did not see himself as handsome or even very interesting. If it was going to happen, Thomas would make the first move.

And Mycroft would decline, gently. Love was not an entanglement he could afford now, he would explain, not when he was starting a new phase of life. Not when his brother was still missing and the case had been declared cold.

And he wasn’t a person who was made for love. He was made for responsibility, duty, efficiency, strategy and well-laid plans. He would tell Thomas all of this, and express his wish that they still remain friends, but romance was not possible.

He had considered his words carefully, but said only one: “Yes.”

“What we’re doing is illegal,” he told Thomas a few days later. They were still in bed, lounging beneath the duvet.

“Only some places,” he replied. “Not in France.”

Mycroft looked at his lover’s form, half uncovered now. Thomas was no waif, no slender boy. He was a man now, his body like a sculpture, its lines perfectly chiseled, his skin golden. “You’re beautiful,” he said. It was an objective truth.

“Oh, my dear.” Thomas looked at him fondly. “So are you.”

“I’m not.” He closed his eyes. “I’m nowhere near ideal, proportionally.”

“Beauty is more than skin and muscle and sinew. It’s you, my love. Your beautiful mind. I don’t believe I’ve ever met someone as intelligent you, or so earnest. And yet, you have a heart, too, and everything you do is done with your whole heart.”

“I do what is expedient.”

Thomas laughed. “I have an expediency for you right at this moment.”

It did not feel wrong, what they were doing. Mycroft did not think about London or his work or responsibilities. It was the first time he could remember when he could actually forget everything but the moment.

They spend much of their time walking and talking, as they had that summer in Athens. Each of them stood at a crossroads. For Thomas, it meant taking a position at Oxford, which had been offered to him, or continuing in the new field of archaeology. Mycroft had already made his own choice, but still felt as if he were standing on a threshold, uncertain what he would find once he’d crossed over.

“So, when did you decide you wanted to be a bureaucrat, Mr Holmes?” Thomas asked as they walked along _La Rive Gauche_ , looking across the river towards the Louvre.

“I began thinking about it when I was eleven.”

Thomas frowned. “I thought most eleven year olds wanted to be soldiers, or drive a coach, or sail a ship.”

He smiled. “I always assumed I’d go into business with my father, so there wasn’t much point in thinking about it. When I realised that might not happen, I began to consider other ways to make money. I had a school mate who planned to go into government work, and he mentioned that it might involve travel. That sounded interesting. What about you?”

“My father prepped me early for the academic life. I did go through a phase, though, where I insisted that I was going to be a policeman. Over my father’s strenuous objections, I might add.”

“A practical career,” Mycroft said. “Policemen are always needed. They work for the common good.”

“Before that, I was going to be a binman.”

Mycroft smiled, but said nothing.

“Ah, well, I suppose we all grow up and learn what is possible,” Thomas said.

“Indeed, we do.”

As their time drew to an end, he tried not to think about what would come after. The days he spent with Thomas were the closest to carefree that he’d ever had. But they were like a dream, not something he could plan a life around.

They sat on the balcony of their hotel, drinking wine and looking out over the city.

“You won’t consider coming to Rome?” Thomas asked. “I’ll be there for a couple years. I’m sure you could get a post at the embassy if you talk to the right people.”

He had expected this as well, and now all the words he had neglected to speak before needed to be said.

“I cannot express,” he began, “how wonderful this has been, how wonderful you have been. I wish it would never end, but it must.”

Thomas was silent for a long moment. Mycroft knew him well enough to see that he was taking this in, deciding what it meant.

Finally he spoke. “I know. I hoped, but didn’t really expect you to stay. There are things we both have to do now, to launch ourselves into life and be who we have planned to be. I never expected to meet someone like you, someone I’d want to spend my life with.”

“Nor did I expect you. It would not be fair to promise you something I cannot give, though. You will have your life, and I will have mine. I cannot give you hope. It would be cruel to pretend that this can last.”

“Will you write to me, love?” There were tears in Thomas’s eyes.

“Always.”

Thomas leaned over and kissed him. “There will never be another you, Mycroft,” he said. “Never forget that. You will hear someday that I have married and had children, but understand that it will not be out of love. I have known love, and I do not expect to find it again. What you feel is not the same, and I understand that—”

“Thomas, please. I _do_ feel— I do.”

He smiled sadly. “You can’t even say it. That tells me that you don’t.”

“I do love you,” he whispered fiercely. “But I am not a man made for love. I am made for duty, and my responsibility was given to me a long time ago.”

Thomas kissed him gently. “I know, and I love you, regardless. Please remember that.”

Love was not something he could forget, even if he had to ignore it. He loved Thomas, even if he could not be with him. Life was arbitrary, not favouring lovers or dreamers, and choices had to be made with care, lest he make a misstep and end up like his parents.

He could still see hear his father’s voice, whispering, _Love is a dangerous disadvantage, my son. Very simple, very destructive._ As he’d promised, he remembered those words. It was not pleasant, but then, truth was rarely pleasant.

Maybe if he’d had responsible parents, if he’d been a bit older, smarter, less naive, he would not have failed. He could make all sorts of excuses for that failure, but it made no difference in the outcome.

He wrote letters to Thomas, and his friend wrote back without fail. They were letters full of the business of life, the victories and disappointments. Thomas told him what he was reading, and what courses he was teaching. He wrote back to tell him about his work, which seemed to expand as his abilities were recognised. Thomas was pleased, and said he’d always known Mycroft was brilliant.

His success did not puff him up, though. He was good at his work, and happy to have more duties to fill his mind and keep him from dark thoughts.

Every letter Thomas wrote to him was signed: _Do not forget me._

And his own letters always responded: _I will never forget._

In this way, the years passed. The letters became less frequent, but did not stop. After Rome, Thomas took a teaching position at Oxford, and Mycroft found himself being offered positions of more responsibility. The Foreign Office, recognising his diplomatic skills, wanted to send him abroad. He could read eleven languages by then, and speak most of them with passable fluency. But his greatest talent seemed to be something that the British Government did not officially recognise, though everyone knew of it.

The truth was that he had the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living— or at least any man who had ever applied his energy to governing. The conclusions of every department were passed to him, and he gradually became the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which made out the balance. All other men were specialists, but his specialism was omniscience. Supposing that a minister needed information as to a point which involved the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft could focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; eventually he would make himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything was pigeon-holed and could be handed out in an instant.

Most of the men who consulted him were surprised to learn that his office was a small room under a modest building in Whitehall. He lived in Pall Mall and walked to work and back every day to maintain his health. At quarter to five each day he could be found at the Diogenes Club, reading newspapers and files and occasionally attending to correspondence. At precisely twenty to eight every evening, he would rise from his chair, gather his papers, and return to his rooms across the street. The doormen checked their clocks by his arrivals and departures.

He was a solitary man, but rarely felt lonely. Around the Christmas holidays, he begged off invitations and stayed in his rooms. He bought a bottle of good whisky and toasted his brother, said a silent prayer for him.

Though he was offered several foreign assignments, he turned them all down, claiming that the best use of his talents was in the very heart of the British government, in Whitehall. In his spare time, using what agents he could, he continued to search for his brother.

And he grew more and more convinced that his confidence in the Scotland Yard’s ability to find his brother had been sorely misplaced. He still regularly checked in with them, and every time he did, some clerk would duly pull the file out of a drawer and go over the record, but the look on that clerk’s face would tell him that the police had no time to look for runaways, which was what they supposed William was. _Boys run away all the time_ , one clerk told him. As far as they were concerned, it was a waste of time and manpower to look for one boy amidst thousands of street urchins, truants, and idlers.

He walked the streets of many neighbourhoods, especially Holborn, looking into the faces of passers-by, not even sure what his brother might look like now, at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old. A young man, no longer a boy.

With every birthday that went by, his hopes grew fainter.

He wrote to Thomas:

_…Perhaps a sane man would give up looking. I pride myself on being sane, governing my actions with logic and reason, but on this matter I always find myself ruled by sentiment. I know you have long regarded my search as foolish, and as I grow older, I am inclined to agree. I have little hope left. Nevertheless, I cannot bring myself to travel abroad. If you are ever in London, I will be happy to see you._

Thomas replied:

 _My dear man,_ foolish _is the last word I would use to describe you. Nor can I judge your actions, never having known in my own life all the loss which you have endured. I beg you, though, to at least take a holiday. Come and see me, dearest friend, if you are willing to travel so far as Oxford. You are always welcome in my home._

It was a few weeks after his twenty-seventh birthday when he read a brief article in the newspaper. _Man, 19, Drowned in Thames._ The man was identified as Sherlock Holmes, of 221B Baker Street.

 _All this time_ , he thought, _he was here, just miles away_. He’d had the power of the British government at his fingertips, and somehow, one homeless boy had slipped through. How had he missed him? Mycroft had been in London for years, passing up multiple chances to go overseas with an embassy without regret, just so he could stay here and look for him.

It was a shock, but his tears did not come in a torrent. Every year he had let go of another piece of his hope, and allowed grief to fill that empty space. He remembered taking his brother’s hands as he learned to walk, and hearing him say his first word: _Ma._ It wasn’t _Mama,_ as his parents supposed; it was _My. Mycroft_.

He remembered holding his brother on his lap as Mr Murray tested him on his lesson, and his surprise when William began to point to the words and say them aloud. He was three then, a curious, headstrong boy who could never be made to do anything. Only Mycroft could convince him to take baths and eat his dinner. Mycroft was the one he ran to when he was hurt or angry or sad, the one who shared his bed when he had nightmares and told him stories until he fell asleep.

He sat in the dark, remembering the little boy who had begged him to stay, to live with him in the old house, just the two of them, and he finally wept.

That night he dreamed that they were playing pirates. It was William’s favourite game, one he always conscripted Mycroft to play with him. There was a place in the woods where a large tree trunk had fallen across a stream, and this was their ship. William proclaimed himself the Captain of the Black Skull, but because Mycroft was his brother, he made him an honorary Captain as well. Mycroft had a spyglass which he’d more or less bequeathed to his brother, and William climbed up one of the remaining branches to reach the crow’s nest. Mycroft had pointed out that captains didn’t climb into the crow’s nest, but stayed on the deck and gave orders, and William replied that pirate captains could do whatever they pleased.

In his dream, the ship was real and they were sailing across the sky, looking for treasure. William had the spyglass. From the crow’s nest he called out: _Land ho!_ And up ahead was an island covered with dark forests, full of strange animals and mysterious tribesmen. There was a lagoon there, where they could paddle their feet and look for frogs. A treasure lay hidden, waiting for them.

He fixed this dream in his mind, in the place where memories of his brother resided. In the years to come, he would bring it out and look at it, a photograph of what he’d lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The description of Mycroft’s talents comes from ACD's "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans," where Sherlock explains to Watson his brother’s position in the British government. It includes the line, "You are right in thinking that he is under the British government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he is the British government."


	8. A Face from the Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas in Paris. Mycroft meets his brother again.   
> Reunion- at last!

It took him a while to find out the details behind the story. The newspaper was not very forthcoming. The reporter he talked to said it wasn’t an important story, as the young man was nobody and people often drown. He was probably drunk, the reporter said. Though that was a common occurrence, it was the job of a newspaper to report unnatural deaths.

The notion that his brother might have become a derelict, cadging for coins to pay for whisky, too drunk to know he’d fallen in the Thames— and that this was so common that nobody thought much about— this was almost too much for Mycroft to endure. Whatever else he had become, William could never be common.

He had an address though, 221B Baker Street, on the west side of the Regent’s Park. Finding the house, he knocked. The woman who answered introduced herself as Mrs Hudson, the landlady. She seemed disinclined to speak with him, but when he said his name, she invited him in and offered him a cup of tea.

“I’m sorry, Mr Holmes. It’s been a lot to take in. It seems like just few days ago he was with us, sitting right in that chair, telling me about his investigation of that awful man, Moriarty. I never dreamed it would come to this.” She pressed her apron hem to her eyes. “He was a wonderful boy, and he had a good home here, I want you to know. I caught him stealing a bun from Mr Hoffman, the baker, and I took him home with me. No more than ten years old, trying to make his way in the world. I told him that he must not steal any more, and that I would feed him and give him a place to sleep. Only he must be a good boy, and try to be good to others.”

Mycroft remembered laying a similar obligation on his brother. “And he was good, wasn’t he?”

“Lord, yes. He organised the other orphans into a sort of an army, looking out for crime and working with the police to stop robberies. The Irregulars, he called them. They all lived here, in the basement, and evenings they would patrol the street, keeping the neighbours safe. Now there’s only Johnny, poor mite, and he’ll soon be gone to Edinburgh. He and Sherlock were like David and Jonathan, always together. They even solved a murder, if you can believe it. Sherlock was like a son to me, and everyone loved him. Poor child.“ She buried her face in her apron again, this time sobbing.

“I am grateful,” he said when her sobs had subsided. “I have worried about him for years, that his life would not be a happy one. I’m glad that it was. Thank you for taking care of him.”

“He was a good boy,” she said again. “I pray for him every day.”

He asked to speak to Mr Lestrade of Scotland Yard, but was told the Inspector was abroad, on special assignment. A young policeman named Anderson told him how his brother had taken on a major crime gang and had confronted its leader, Moriarty, at a warehouse in the Docklands, falling from a window into the Thames and shot at by Moriarty’s men. They had searched for the body until the only conclusion they could draw was that he had drowned.

“I still can’t believe it,” Anderson said. “He was larger than life.”

Mycroft asked, “Did it make a difference, what he did?”

“Yes, sir. He made all the difference— to more people than you can imagine.”

He did not weep, but felt empty for weeks after. The body had never been found, but there was no doubt. He arranged for a memorial at St Mary’s and was surprised to see how many people filled the church. He gave Mrs Hudson a sum for the Baker Street Irregulars Scholarship Fund, which would help pay for medical school for John Watson, his brother’s best friend. He did not meet the boy, but decided that he could do this one thing for William, to make sure his friend had an education. He wrote to Edinburgh University and told them he would be responsible for Watson’s tuition, but would prefer that the boy not know his benefactor.

None of these things filled his emptiness. It had been almost a year since he’d written to Thomas. He thought of writing now, and finally gave in to that impulse. It was a terse letter, simply: _I must see you, if you are amenable._ The response was an invitation.

Thomas was living in Oxford again, teaching history. “I’ve married,” he said, but did not elaborate. “I’m trying to start an instructional program in archaeology, but it’s hard going. Academics see it as a hobby, not a real science. I’m teaching ancient history for now, applying for summer grants.”

“Your father must be proud,” he said.

Thomas’s pretty wife fluttered about, making the tea and leaving them to themselves, claiming she had errands to run.

As soon as she left, Mycroft told him why he’d written. Without a word, Thomas gathered him into his arms. The tears came then, not a flood, but just a few.

“My dear boy,” he said. “Can you talk about it?”

He told him what he knew. Sherlock had been taken in by a kind woman, had worked with the police to solve crimes, had finally taken on a task too dangerous, and lost his life saving another boy.

“His body wasn’t found,” Mycroft said. “That’s the horror of it, for me. I never got to see him, to say goodbye. He’s dead, and I never found him.”

“Will you erect a monument?”

“Eventually. We have no family estate, though. My parents were buried on land that no longer belongs to us. I have looked into buying it back, but it will be expensive.” He looked into Thomas’s eyes. “That is my duty now.”

“And what will you do now? You need longer stay in London.”

He had thought about it, of course. Seeing his restless friend settled into married life in Oxford left a bitter taste in his mouth. “I have accepted the attache position in Paris. They’ve been holding it for me, and now I feel ready.”

Thomas nodded. “It will do you good to get away.”

“And what about you? Are you happy, my friend?”

A rueful smile gave him his answer. “I am not unhappy. Emma is a lovely and tolerant woman with interests of her own. She doesn’t care much for travel. Her family has wealth, however, and has given generously to the foundation which will fund my next trip to Egypt.”

“You married for money, then.”

Thomas shrugged. “For companionship, perhaps. We are compatible, and I have only just begun to realise how rare that is. Money and connections are a bonus. Since love was off the table, as you know, it didn’t seem to matter. It’s a good marriage, as good as any. You need not wish me joy, Mycroft. I’m not looking for that. But I am glad to hear you’re moving to Paris.” Smiling, he took Mycroft’s hand. “Perhaps you will find what I no longer seek.”

It was 1871. Since the Siege of Paris, the city had been in chaos, the embassy moved first to Tours, and then to Bordeaux, along with the provisional government, returning to Paris only after the Prussian occupation ended in May. Mycroft arrived near the end of the year.

Because he was just a lowly staffer, he did not live in the embassy building on the fashionable Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honore. A residence for staff was maintained nearby. He shared a room with another staffer, a Mr Stark. Both of them being quiet men of regular habits, they had no disagreements.

He continued to write to Thomas, who was considering an offer to teach in Boston, at Harvard. His wife was opposed, he said, and he felt he must decline. He sounded unhappy, Mycroft thought.

His own career was progressing well as he acquired the same sort of admiration for his talents that he had earned while working for the Home Office. As his star rose, he was able to move into a small residence of his own and have a servant of his own, a man who tended to his wardrobe, his tea, and his calendar. He enjoyed his work, which absorbed him to such an extent that he had little time to do much else. This was acceptable; he did not crave leisure. Too many of his social outings and midnight strolls reminded him of the holiday he spent in Paris with Thomas. Thinking of such things was pointless.

In the autumn of 1879, he turned thirty-five and was arguably one of the most trusted attaches to the Ambassador. He had become a man whose opinion was respected and who (it was said) might fix his eye on the highest positions in the government. _Keep an eye on this one,_ the Ambassador himself often said to anyone who would listen. _He’ll have my job one day._

All the vagaries of his young life were over, he felt. He had his daily routines in Paris, as he’d had in London. He called a few people friends, and had not sought out any lovers. His life was compact, orderly, uncomplicated.

He began to weary of the embassy, though, and wondered if he might return to England. The first years after the occupation were tumultuous, and there had been people to appease, policies to be made, and negotiations that filled many hours of his day. Now everything at the embassy ran like a well-oiled machine, thanks in part to his own talents. He wondered if he was ready for a new challenge.

Not nearly old enough to retire, he thought about the house where he and William had been boys, the neglected cemetery where his family lay. Once, he’d planned to buy it back, if not to live there, at least to make sure it was kept in repair. He was unlikely ever to have an heir to pass it on to, but owning it was something he felt compelled to do. Now he wrote to an estate agent, asking him to make inquiries.

Returning to London would bring back memories that he had mostly given up and relegated to storage. He wasn’t sure he wanted to bring them back, but perhaps enough time had gone by, and he should finally face that ghost, give his brother a proper memorial, and let him go for good.

Thomas wrote to him that his wife had conceived another child, their third, which was due early in 1880. This would further tie him to Oxford. He did not think they would have much occasion to see one another, but sounded pleased that Mycroft was considering coming home, and invited him to visit when he was back in the country.

He went to the Christmas ball at the embassy because it was expected. The unspoken rules of his position said that socialising was sometimes required and often unexpectedly useful. Not much business would be happening this week with the Holiday falling on Wednesday, so people were relaxed and talkative about other things than work. It was the perfect time to pick up gossip, malicious or not. Knowing such things helped him do his job.

There was an orchestra playing in the main hall, where a few people danced while others sat and listened. He thought of joining them, simply sitting on the edge of the festivity and immersing himself in the music, but he felt too restless for that tonight, and wandered into the reception hall, where a couple of the other attachés were deep in conversation.

“Holmes,” Daniels greeted him. “There’s a fellow here whom you simply must meet. He’s at the university, teaching something they’re calling _forensic science_. Rather young to be an expert, but apparently the man’s brilliant.”

Stark nodded. “Just finished breaking up quite an extensive criminal network here, on the continent.”

“English?”

“From London. Name’s William Vernet. You’ll find him in the drawing room, surrounded by a crowd of admirers, telling an awfully funny story about the first murder he solved.”

_Vernet._ Might be a relative, he thought. A distant cousin. He moved towards the door of the drawing room, stepped inside and accepted a glass of wine from a waiter.

“… So Watson says, _maybe we should get a copper._ But I knew what the police would do, tromping all over the site, destroying evidence, so I tell him we’d take a look first, see if we can pick up any clues, and then call the cops. I could see that two blokes had arrived in a hansom and gone inside, but only one came out, judging by the footprints. Inside we found…”

A London accent, with suggestions of patrician inflection. Born in wealth, grew up in poverty. Tall and lanky, dark curly hair, hands that didn’t stop moving, pointing, gesticulating. And those eyes, like opals.

“…his face was horrible! And Watson says, _that bloke’s dead, Sherlock_ … _”_

The listeners chuckled.

_Sherlock_. Oh, God.

Feeling the room suddenly grow dim and begin to rotate, he reached for a chair, sank down and, when his vision cleared, kept his eyes pinned on the man, drinking in every word he said..

“ _A sound analysis, Doc, but I was hoping you’d go further_ , I tell him. There’s blood on the floor, I notice, but it’s not the dead bloke’s. And there’s bloody letters on the wall, written by a dying hand …”

_Miraculous_. In years to come, he would never find words to describe how he felt at that moment. It was a miracle, and miracles are ineffable, he supposed.

_A man is shot, falls into the river, his body never recovered. Years later, he is at the British Consulate in Paris, telling a story about a dead body in an empty house._ Somehow, it fit.

There were several possible explanations: sloppy police work, for one. The police report was quite sketchy, he recalled. It was night, and many details must have been missed. He might not have been wounded so badly, might have swum downstream and come to shore unnoticed. _But why?_

Mycroft sat and listened for a long time. People asked William questions and he answered them with more stories. Mycroft had questions of his own, but he would wait.

Someone asked, “What made you go into this career, catching criminals?”

He smiled. “My brother always said, _There are never enough good people to go around, so you must be one of them._ ”

As the party drew to a close, he stood, watching the guests leave. _He won’t recognise me._ Children began forming memories at about three years, he knew. William was almost six when they last saw one another, and still remembered that he had a brother, but what he recalled about him was less certain.

William was speaking French now, talking to the ambassador. He cocked his head, listening (a gesture so familiar that Mycroft felt tears gather in his eyes), and laughed, then demonstrated something, his hands gracefully moving as he talked.

Smiling, Mycroft shook his head in amazement. _A graceful man, a man of learning and curiosity. A scientist_. William Sherlock Scott Holmes.

William bowed and shook the ambassador’s hand, then turned to the door, where Mycroft was standing. Noticing Mycroft, he smiled, but a puzzled crease appeared between his eyes, a look that meant he was putting things together, solving a mystery. Mycroft’s heart sped up a few beats as he approached.

“Mr Vernet,” he said, inclining his head. 

William smiled, but shook his head slightly. “I feel as if we’ve met before. Do I know you?”

“You do, though it’s been a few years.”

Their hands met, and he held on to his brother’s, waiting to see if he understood.

His face lit up. “My,” he said, and his arms went around him. “Mycroft.”

They spent the night walking and talking, finally ending up at Mycroft’s rooms, where they shared a drink and regarded one another in silence, all the details of where and when and how having been dealt with.

“I looked for you,” he told William. “Did you never look for me?”

“I was nine, remember,” he replied. “So don’t think badly of me. When I left Rudy’s, I had no time to take anything, not even my violin. I was dressed as a girl and in a house with two he-shes I barely knew.”

“They didn’t…?”

“No, not at all. They weren’t like that. But other than making me pose as their niece, they had no plan. I told them I had a brother, but I didn’t have your address. I didn’t have Sherrinford’s address either, and they put Rudy in the lock-up. Stella told me if I went to the police, the first thing they’d do would be to send me to a workhouse or an orphanage, and nobody would bother to look for me. You were right when you told me that people don’t listen to children. Considering all of this, I decided that the only thing to do was to strike out on my own. That was rough for a while, living on the streets, and I had no time to think about finding you. I also knew that you had no way to take care of me, and I didn’t want to upset your plans to go to Oxford.”

He sighed. “My dear brother, Oxford was the least of my concerns when you disappeared.”

William shrugged. “You always knew what to do, and you’d tried to teach me how to take care of myself, so I figured I’d do that. Why should the burden be on you? And then Mrs Hudson found me and took me in, and things were better.”

“I would have come for you,” he said. “If I’d only known.”

“I know you would have, but you weren’t that much better off than I was, not old enough to take care of a younger brother and get your education at the same time.” He shook his head. “I always thought I’d come to Oxford and look for you one day, but I figured you had your own things to do, and there were always things to keep me occupied on Baker Street. I didn’t even know if you were still at Oxford. John was planning to leave for Edinburgh that fall, and I thought maybe I’d look for you once he was on his way. But then Moriarty came on the scene, and I had to do something about him. I didn’t expect to end up chasing his associates all over Europe. I changed my identity. Sherlock Holmes being dead meant that William Vernet was safe.”

“And you’ve remained here for several years, I understand. Are you aware that your friends still think you dead?”

He shook his head. “When I came out from under cover a while back, I wrote a letter to Mrs Hudson and told her. She passed word to the others. But I’d been invited to the university here, which was too remarkable to pass up. The idea that a whole gang of professors and coppers would listen to a street kid lecturing about the science of deduction— well, I had to do it, just for the bragging rights. The thing is…” he bit his lip, then let out a deep sigh. “Nobody knows what’s happened to John. And I especially need to find him.”

Mycroft smiled. “Why especially him?”

William was giving him that stubborn look, the one used most often when he was trying to explain something he was absolutely set on and his older brother was too dense to see.

“Because, my dear idiot, I’m in love with him.” He shrugged. “If that offends you, so be it. It took me a while to figure it out, but I’m just not attracted to women. Or their clothes— dear God, have you ever worn a corset? Torture. Women are fine as people, but John— he’s something special. We made a vow. And now he thinks I’m dead and… I’ve lost him, My.”

“You say nobody’s heard from him? I was told he was going to medical school in Edinburgh.”

“He completed his degree while I was undercover. But by then he wasn’t writing to any of the Irregulars, or even Mrs Hudson. When he left school, it was like he fell off the face of the planet. He has no family other than Baker Street, and none of them knows where he is.”

“There are some advantages of working for the British government.” Mycroft leaned forward and tipped a bit more brandy into their glasses. “I may be able to help you with that.”


	9. Epilogue: Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Return to London. Journeys end in lovers meeting.

Within a month, he had an answer for his brother. “John Watson is registered to practice medicine and is currently attached to the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, serving as an assistant surgeon.”

“He joined the army!”

Mycroft nodded. “Indeed. He was initially deployed to India, but when the Second Afghan War broke out, he was sent to Kandahar, where he is now serving with the Berkshires.”

William considered this. “I could write to him, though a letter might take a while to get there—“

“Brother, please consider what you are about to do. In the first place, he has believed you dead for years. He has moved on with his life, and may not receive the news that you are alive with joy. He may be angry that you didn’t tell him.”

“I _couldn’t_ tell him! Everyone had to think I was dead. And he would never move on, not completely. We made a vow, even after death. By the stars, we said. I know that sounds foolish to you, but he is not a boy— a _man—_ to break his word.”

He could see that William was no less stubborn as a man than he had been as a boy. “Consider his present circumstances. He is in the midst of a war, stationed far away from home, in danger every moment, whilst doing his best to keep his comrades alive. One day, several weeks from now— we know the post does not reach Afghanistan as quickly as it travels between Paris and London— he receives your letter. First, he may believe it is a cruel hoax. And if he does believe it, how can such momentous news affect him? How can he keep his focus on the battlefield, when he has just received such news?”

William glared for a few moments, huffing impatiently, but not speaking. Finally, he sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I know my John; this is the kind of news that should be delivered face to face. It has been a very long time, and it will be a difficult conversation, but there is no remedy for that. I will wait. I only hope…” He shook his head. “What a fool I am. I have never stopped loving him, but perhaps he has changed. People do change, don’t they? Or their circumstances do.”

“They do. And love, which ought to stay the same once sworn, is often founded in circumstances that cease to exist over time.”

His brother looked up from his reverie. “Have you ever been in love, My?”

“I have.” He thought of Henry, so young, so brilliant, and the love he’d felt for him. It _was_ love, he admitted, but it would not have lasted. That was just the opening of his heart, which he’d then tried to close and lock. But it had opened again for Thomas, and had never completely closed. “Once I believed that love is a dangerous disadvantage.”

“It’s not.” William downed the last of his brandy. “Dangerous or foolish, it is our only advantage.”

There were many kinds of love, he thought. His life had been guided by his love for William, a brotherly love. That was where his obligation began, not with his parents’ misfortune. He had loved his brother since the moment he held him, not yet a day old, and they had looked at each other with awe.Whatever might have happened, that love would have guided his choices.

“It will be all right, brother,” he said. “I will do everything I can.” Which wasn’t much, he had to admit.

William grew restless once he knew where John was. Though he couldn’t go to his friend, he began to talk of returning to London. Teaching was not his passion; he abhorred explaining things whilst he was making deductions and having epiphanies, and longed to be chasing criminals again. His mind raced more recklessly than his brother’s, and Mycroft recognised his genius; not everyone is meant to teach.

“I’m the only consulting detective in the world,” he said. “I’m sure there’s enough work in London to keep Sherlock Holmes busy.”

“You once declared that you would be a pirate,” Mycroft reminded him.

“I remember,” he said, smiling fondly. “There are many kinds of pirates, I suppose. I have not lost my taste for adventure.”

He was nearly as tall as Mycroft, but slender, like their mother, with a restless energy all his own. In the right clothing, his lanky grace might have been elegance. “You must let me outfit you properly. You are rather bohemian, brother.”

“I suppose I am, but it suits my lifestyle. Disguises are my idea of a proper wardrobe.”

“Do you still have the deerstalker?”

“I don’t. I left it behind when I went to rescue John that night. Too distinctive for sleuthing around the docklands. I suppose John might have kept it.” He grinned. “I have only received one present I valued more. John bought me a violin one Christmas.”

But he agreed to let Mycroft pick out a few suits for him, and to learn some social graces. The results were astounding. His figure was made for expensive tailoring, and he had an acerbic wit that mesmerised people. The ladies flocked to him as well. As he had explained to Mycroft, though, ladies were not his area. He was pleasant, but not flirtatious. Nor did he take advantage of the liberality of Paris to seek out male lovers. He seemed happiest with a pipe and a book, unless there were some mystery to solve.

“It’s better if I keep my heart away from love,” he said. “If John wants it, it will be his. If not, I will devote myself to a life without love.”

Mycroft made his own plans to return to London. Now that he had found his brother, he knew that it was time to leave Paris. He was not sure what he wanted, but it wasn’t titles or prestige. He had a head for figures and a prodigious memory. Once he’d created a niche for these talents in Whitehall, and maybe he could do that again. He wrote letters inquiring about positions. As it happened, there were people in the Home Office interested in his return, and a position would be created for him, whenever he desired it. He abandoned his duties in Paris gradually, training the man chosen to succeed him.

It was spring when his brother left. He saw him off at the train station, both of them a bit awkward. It had felt strange, getting used to one another again after so many years. There was a distance that hadn’t been there when they were children, and Mycroft supposed that was inevitable. William was no longer dependent on him, and had been making his own decisions for so many years, it seemed foolish to think he would defer to his brother’s opinions. Their relationship could not go forward if Mycroft treated him as a child. He only needed to figure out what they would be to one another, now that they were both men.

And so he stood, awkward, on the train platform with William, listening to him talk of Baker Street and his old friends, his face glowing with excitement. He had written again to Mrs Hudson, who said she would keep the upstairs rooms for him. As the train approached, he seemed eager to say goodbye.

Where Mycroft would have once hugged the little boy and lifted him onto his hip, he merely held out his hand to the man his brother had become.

“Farewell,” he said. “Good journey.”

William dropped his bag and grabbed him into a fierce hug. “After all you’ve done for me, I don’t expect a handshake will do, My. I will see you soon, dear brother, I hope?”

“You will.” His words were choked with tears, but he was surprised to find that his heart was rather light. It was a new world now, one where Sherlock Holmes would walk the streets of London once more.

In July, soon after Mycroft returned to London, he heard news from Afghanistan. The British had been disastrously defeated in Maiwand, with many casualties. At once he thought of John Watson and knew he needed to talk to William.

His brother, having also heard the news, was frantic to know Watson’s fate. Two weeks after the battle came word of the casualties.

“He was wounded and is in hospital at Peshawar,” he told William. “As soon as he can travel, they will send him home.”

“How badly wounded?”

“I don’t have that information. What is more worrisome is the likelihood of infection.” He said this to prepare William. If Watson’s wounds were serious, there might be complications. He might lose a limb, or have permanent disabilities. Old soldier’s homes were full of the lame, the blind, the half-witted. He might not even survive the journey home.

The next communication was hopeful; it said that Captain Watson had improved and was able to walk. He would be sent home soon. 

As they waited for word on his departure, they learned that that he had contracted enteric fever. This was serious. Though Mycroft didn’t say anything to his brother, he knew that most of the casualties were due to infections after the wound that developed in the crowded base hospital. He suspected his brother knew this as well.

The wait was long, but in September they learned that he was on his way home.

Their reunion, Mycroft did not witness. He stopped by 221B Baker Street one day, but they were out on a case. Mrs Hudson told him that all was well, now that _her boys_ were together again.

_Journeys end in lovers meeting_ , he thought. _Every wise man’s son doth know._

He had moved into his new rooms in Pall Mall and was unpacking his books, placing them on his shelves, when a notion struck him. The book he held in his hand was _History of the Peloponnesian War._ An old book, tattered and much used by the man whose library it had come from. He opened the cover and read the message on the fly-leaf.

_καρδιά μου_.

_My heart._

There was no signature. Thucydides was hardly a romantic choice, but the book was a gift from Thomas, given those many years ago in Paris with a promise: _I love you, regardless_.

More than fifteen years had passed since he had said this to Mycroft. Those same words had been written countless times over the years, in every letter Thomas sent to him. His own words he could not regret; when he said them, it was not the time for love. And now it was too late, but he needed to see him and say to him: _I have never forgotten. You are still in my heart._

He was on the next train to Oxford. The last letter he’d received was before Christmas, when he’d told Mycroft about his wife’s pregnancy. By now the child must have been born, and he wondered now why he’d received no announcement of that.

Thomas’s father had passed away, and his mother had moved to Swindon to take care of her older sister, leaving the house to Thomas and his family. There were two children, a boy and a girl, he remembered. And a third, recently born.

It was not like Mycroft to be spontaneous. He walked from the campus, wishing that he’d sent a telegram. Michaelmas term had begun, and students filled the campus. It was unlikely that Thomas had taken the term off to go abroad, not with a new child in the family.

The door was opened by a boy of about seven, he estimated, with a young woman following on his heels, obviously a governess. She took the child’s hand and drew him to her side.

“Master Robert, you’re not to be opening this door. Has your father not told you?” She smiled at Mycroft. “You are here to see Mr Landon?”

“I am. I’m afraid I don’t have an appointment.”

“He’s at home. I can see if he’s busy now— ah, here’s Mrs Putnam. She’ll know.” She began herding her charge back to his lesson. “Mrs Putnam, can you ask Mr Landon if he is able to receive this gentleman?”

The old woman’s face brightened. “Mr Holmes! How wonderful to see you!”

“So good to see you, Mrs Putnam,” he replied. “I’ve come to call on Mr Landon. I do apologise for not letting him know. It was rather an impulse.”

“He’s in the garden, reading. I’m sure he’ll be delighted— just follow me.”

It had been a few years since he’d seen Thomas. Knowing that his own hair had grown a bit thinner, his profile a bit bulkier, he expected to see changes in his friend. He found Thomas sitting in the shade, reading a paper, a pair of spectacles propped on his nose. His hair was still golden, his figure a bit stockier, and hours in the sun had given his face fine lines. But in the moment that he turned and saw Mycroft, the years seemed to melt off of him.

Wordlessly he stood and stepped towards him, opening his arms. When they finally broke away and looked at one another, he saw tears in his friend’s eyes.

“My dear boy,” Thomas said. “How very good of you. I apologise for not writing, but I suppose you have heard of my bereavement.”

“I’m afraid… I have not,” he said. “What has happened?”

“My Emma is gone.” These were the only words he could speak for some minutes. “She contracted influenza in the spring, a few weeks before the child was to be born. We lost them both.”

“My dear.” He held Thomas. “I am so sorry.”

The housekeeper discreetly brought in tea for them, and they sat, side by side on the bench.

“There are many types of love, Mycroft,” Thomas said at last. “I did not marry for love, but we grew into a mutual respect as our children were born. When she was ill and dying, I told her I loved her, and it was not a lie.” He smiled. “Once I said no one would ever replace you, and she hasn’t. But it took me by surprise, like an unexpected gift. She was wonderful, and I miss her terribly.”

“I am glad that you had her, Thomas. Truly, I am. You deserve a life filled with love.”

“And what of you, dear friend?” His smile was wistful. “Have you found love?”

“As you say, there are many kinds of love. I once told you that I am a man made for duty, not love. Perhaps I was wrong, but duty is love of country, and serving has given me contentment.”

Thomas took his hand. “I’m sorry I haven’t written you about my loss. If I had, though, I would have closed with the same words. You are still in my heart. I’m glad you haven’t forgotten me through the years. Even when we both were busy, it meant something to me to receive your letters.”

“It meant something to me as well.” He looked at their hands and shook his head. “I can never forget what you mean to me, Thomas.”

Thomas squeezed his hand. “But you did not know my news, so you’ve come to see me for some other reason, I think.” He smiled. “You’re not the only one who notices things, my friend. I never thought to see you return to London. Is this a permanent move?”

“I think so.”

“What has happened to bring you back?”

He smiled. “I will tell you, though you will scarcely believe what has happened.”

“You’ve received a promotion, I’m guessing.”

“A promotion, yes, in a way. My position is somewhat… unscripted, my title not prestigious. Whatever your father once saw in me, others have noticed. I am considered something of a shortcut, a convenience, or perhaps a clearinghouse of information, cutting across departments to give advice as needed.”

“Congratulations, old man! I wish my father were alive to see it.”

“But that is not why I left Paris. Last Christmas, at the embassy ball, I met a man named William Vernet, a consultant on forensics who was lecturing at the university.”

“Vernet— is that not a family name of yours? Was this a cousin?”

“He’s my brother.”

Thomas’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Your brother— but you’ve believed him dead all these years!”

“Yes. He did not drown, but secretly went to Europe to root out the crime organisation that he’d uncovered in London. When that was complete, he stayed on to assist the university in forming a department of forensics. We were reunited that night in Paris, and when he decided it was time to return to London, I made plans to come back as well.”

“That’s— you must have been shocked to discover him! I can’t imagine— what’s he like?”

“He’s brilliant, as I knew he would be. A bit rough around the edges, but quite handsome and charismatic. I’ve taken him round to my tailor for a proper wardrobe, but he remains somewhat bohemian in his sartorial choices.”

Thomas laughed. “And the two of you get along?”

“Yes, I think we do. It’s difficult for me to think of him as grown, though— nearly thirty now!”

“The years have worn on us both,” his friend replied. “But all’s well that ends well.”

“You will continue here, at Oxford, then? Or perhaps you’re considering a change.”

The blue eyes twinkled. “What is it that gives me away?”

“You’ve always been restless, Thomas. You’ve spent the last years in Oxford for the sake of your wife and children, and settling your father’s estate. You haven’t done field work in a few years. I just thought that now you might be thinking about something new.” He smiled. “And I noticed as I passed through the house that someone has begun boxing up your household.”

Thomas laughed. “Indeed, I am thinking of something new. We’re going to Egypt for a few months. In the spring, I’ll be returning to write a book.”

“Returning to Oxford?”

“Perhaps.” He turned to look at Mycroft. “And you’ll be staying in London.”

“The work I do requires me to be in Whitehall.”

The silence stretched out between them.

Thomas nodded. “A book can be written anywhere, as long as I have a place to spread out my notes.”

“You are always welcome in my home, Thomas. I am still a man of duty, but I think now there might be a place for… other things.”

Thomas squeezed his hand. “That’s… good. I would like that.”

On Christmas Day he headed for 221B Baker Street, where he was to celebrate with his brother and finally meet his friends.

In his pocket he carried his latest letter from Thomas, who was having a grand time in Egypt, but looking forward to returning. And Mycroft was thinking he might come up with a plausible reason for them to meet in Paris on his journey home. In spite of the miles between them there was no doubt that they were reunited. Before he left England, Thomas had spent a few days with him in Whitehall.

It was strange to think that he might now have what he’d so long denied himself.

He presented himself at the door, was received by William, drawn into a festively decorated room, and immediately surrounded by a variety of people— the Irregulars and their families.

He was introduced to Michael Stamford, known to all as Prof, who had brought his wife and children. He taught anatomy at Barts Hospital.

Anderson, the policeman he’d talked to years ago, proudly introduced Sal Donovan, the first woman constable of the Metropolitan Police.

“And this is Doc,” said William said, leading his friend forward. “Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, Doctor of Surgery, survivor of Maiwand, and my best friend.”

It was clear that they were more than friends, Mycroft thought as he took the doctor’s hand. A handsome man, though still showing the signs of his injuries and illness.

“I am honoured to meet you, Captain Watson,” Mycroft said. “And very glad that you seem to have recovered.”

“Thank you,” Watson replied. “Quite a turn of events for us both, wouldn’t you say?”

“Indeed. A happy turn of events.”

***

When Mycroft finalised the purchase of his family’s estate, there was no monument to place in the little cemetery. He had imagined himself watching while the stone was delivered and planted at the head of his father’s grave, waiting until the delivery men had left to say his final words to his brother.

Now his brother was coming with him to see the place where they never quite grew up, and perhaps to stir up a few ghosts.

It was spring, and Thomas had finished his travels, brought his children back to Oxford, and then returned to London, to Mycroft.

And William brought his Watson. The soldier was still limping, but managed to keep up with his partner, William said, and was eager to see Woodley Hall.

They’d first gone to see the little cemetery, stood at their parents’ graves. The stone for their father’s grave was recent; Mycroft himself had paid for the marker and arranged with a local company for it to be installed, something Cousin Sherrinford had never got around to doing.

“I remember them,” William said. “But don’t think I ever knew them.”

Mycroft didn’t know what to say to this. His own memories of those months were bitter, but he had long ago forgiven them for their omissions. He and William might have had a much different childhood, but they had both survived. They could not ask for more from the past.

They joined the other two men in the main hall. William ran his hand over the bannister, smiling, then looked up the stairway to the landing, where he so often sat, pretending he was in his pirate ship. The house hadn’t been occupied for several years now, and would need repairs. Mycroft wasn’t sure it was worth it, but when he saw his brother’s face light up at each new discovery— the pantry where he used to hide, the room where Mother played the piano and sang to them, the kitchen where Bessie slipped him sweets and scolded him for skipping his lessons with Mr Murray— he made the decision to look into the costs of restoration.

They walked outside through the dining room doors and into what used to be the garden. There was a bench, and Watson gladly sat, resting his leg. Thomas joined him, and they began to converse. It warmed Mycroft to see the two of them together, Thomas eagerly sharing his experiences in Egypt, and Watson describing his tour of duty in Afghanistan.

His brother was standing on the lawn, looking towards the woods, wearing the old deerstalker and smiling to himself. Mycroft remembered his vision of an older William, coming up the stairs to the attic. The younger boy had always hunted for treasure, always run towards adventure. The older one was really not so different, Mycroft thought.

He came up and stood beside William. “What do you think?”

“I think that there’s a pirate ship anchored in a lagoon over there.” He pointed towards the woods. “Maybe we could explore a bit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will leave them to find their pirate ship and see where it takes them. Thank you, dear readers, for undertaking this voyage with me!


End file.
